Family Members Speak About Loved Ones Lost in Navy Yard Shooting

Twelve people died when Aaron Alexis opened fire at the US Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. The names of the victims were released on Tuesday and a few family members spoke to the media about their loved ones.

• Arthur Daniels – 51
• Mary Francis Knight – 51
• Gerald L. Read – 54
• Martin Bodrog – 54
• Richard Michael Ridgell – 52
• Michael Arnold – 59
• Sylvia Frasier – 53
• Kathy Gaarde – 62
• John Roger Johnson – 73
• Frank Kohler – 50
• Kenneth Bernard Proctor – 46
• Vishnu Pandit – 61

Kathleen Gaarde’s husband Douglass released this statement to the Associated Press:

“Today my life partner of 42 years (38 of them married) was taken from me, my grown son and daughter, and friends,” he wrote. “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.”

Douglass Gaarde retired from the Navy last year. Kathleen’s sister-in-law told the AP that Kathleen was gracious and very welcoming.

Kenneth Proctor’s ex-wife Evelyn spoke to the AP. They were high school sweethearts and married in 1994. They divorced this year and shared custody of their two sons, but they still talked every single day. Evelyn said they talked early in the morning.

“He just went in there in the morning for breakfast,” Proctor said Monday night of the building where the shooting took place. “He didn’t even work in the building. It was a routine thing for him to go there in the morning for breakfast, and unfortunately it happened.”

“We were still very close. It wasn’t a bitter divorce,” Evelyn Proctor said. “We still talked every day, and we lived 10 minutes away from each other.”

“He loved the Redskins. Loved his kids — a very loving, caring, gentle person. His kids meant a lot to him,” Evelyn Proctor said.

Michael Arnold graduated from the United States Naval Academy and was in the Navy for 29 years. He was married to his wife Jolanda for 30 years, and they had two grown sons, Eric and Christopher. His uncle, Steve Hunter, said:

“He was a loving son of his mother and his wife, and great father to his kids,” said Hunter. “It’s tragic. How can you get up in the morning and go to work and have that happen? How do bad things like that happen to good people?”