The family of slain school teacher Victoria Soto took some comfort that she died valiantly trying to save her first graders from the wrath of Sandy Hook Elementary School gunman Adam Lanza.
“We heard at one point they found some people hiding in a closet and all of us said Vicky would never hiding in a closet, she would be out there protecting those babies,” he mother, Donna, told CBS’s “This Morning.”
Soto, 27, loved her job teaching, her mother said.
“She was not somebody that ever wanted to be famous or wanted her picture in the paper. To have it blasted in all of the papers throughout the country and the world, it is surreal,” she said.
Donna, sitting with her two other daughters and son, recalled how the family members learned of the extent of the horrific bloodshed from Connecticut governor Dan Malloy.
The governor informed the panicked family members that the two children transported to Danbury Hospital had passed away. The parents then asked about everyone else.
“Another parent asked where did the other people go. We want to be with our kids and he said no one else was taken to a hospital,” she recalled. “And somebody, a very angry parent said, what are you telling us? They are all dead? And he said, yes, and that’s how we found out.”
Carly Soto, the younger sister of Victoria, became a face of the horror on Friday when she was photographed almost shrieking into her cell phone.
She called the picture, “ a reminder of that moment all over again and it kills.”
But, the family also laughed, when they recalled Victoria taking them on jaunts to find the perfect Christmas tree – with the outings lasting for hours because she had to pick the right one. They lovingly called her “Queen Victoria” they said because she almost expected the best.