The husband of a teacher who was killed in the Uvalde school attack has himself passed away due to a heart attack, his family said.
Guadalupe “Joe” Garcia, 48, was the husband of Irma Garcia. She was one of the 21 killed in the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde.
Irma taught at the school for 23 years, according to her school profile. In 2019, she was one of 19 San Antonio-area teachers named as a finalist for a Trinity University prize that recognizes excellence in teaching.
The couple had four children. Joe loved barbecuing with Irma and listening to music. Initially, their nephew said he passed away from “grief.”
On Wednesday night, John Martinez, Joe and Irma’s nephew, said the family had described this week as a nightmare, and they still hadn’t come to terms with losing Irma.
Joe was a family man who would have done anything and everything for his four kids, he said.
Irma’s body was found holding another student, protecting a child who was also killed in the shooting, the family said. They said they believed that Irma died a hero.
“Stuff like this should not be happening in schools,” claimed people.
According to authorities that the suspect, Salvador Ramos, was inside the classroom for more than an hour before he was killed in a shootout with law enforcement, authorities said.
The Garcias loved to barbecue, 48-year-old Irma wrote in an online letter to her students at Robb Elementary School. She loved listening to music and travelling to Concan, a community along the Frio River about 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Uvalde.
The school year, scheduled to end on Thursday, was Garcia’s 23rd year of teaching – all of it at Robb. “Mrs Irma Garcia was my mentor when I began teaching,” her colleague Allison McCullough wrote when Garcia was named teacher of the year.