He didn’t even work in that building.
Kenneth Proctor, a civilian utilities foreman at the Washington Navy Yard, worked near the building where the senseless, deadly massacre took place.
“He just went in there in the morning for breakfast,” said Proctor’s ex-wife. “It was a routine thing for him to go there in the morning for breakfast, and unfortunately it happened.”
Though the high school sweethearts were divorced earlier this year, they still spoke every day, including Monday morning, before a gunman shattered their lives.
“We were still very close. It wasn’t a bitter divorce,” she said. “We still talked every day, and we lived 10 minutes away from each other.”
After news of the shooting spread, Evelyn said she was unable to reach Proctor, 46, and sped to the Navy Yard, fearing the worst.
Kathleen Gaarde’s family and friends had the same fear.
Neighbor Patrick Bolton sat glued to the television waiting for good news about Gaarde, 62, a loving wife and mother.
It never came.
“The mother was just the kindest lady in the world,” Bolton said. “I’m not even exaggerating. I’ve never seen her do anything but nice things for people.”
Gaarde’s husband, Douglass, who retired from the Navy last year, issued a statement.
“Today my life partner of 42 years (38 of them married) was taken from me, my grown son and daughter, and friends,” Douglass Gaarde said. “We were just starting to plan our retirement activities and now none of that matters. It hasn’t fully sunk in yet but I know I already dearly miss her.”
Victim Sylvia Frasier’s family was trying to keep the bitterness at bay.
“No matter how we feel, no matter what information we get from the FBI, we have got to forgive,” said Frasier’s sister, Wendy Edmonds, said. “We have to forgive. We can’t become bitter.”
Frasier, 53, was a network-security administrator with the Naval Sea Systems Command.
Twelve people were killed Monday when gunman Aaron Alexis, a decorated Navy vet from Queens, went on a murderous rampage at the Washington Navy Yard in DC.
Among those killed whose names were made public include Arthur Daniels, 51, a subcontractor for a furniture repair shop; Michael Arnold, 59, who built and designed amphibious assault ships; John Roger Johnson, 73, a civilian Navy employee; Frank Kohler, 50, and Vishnu Pandit, 61.