• Facebook • Twitter • Delicious • LinkedIn • StumbleUpon • Add to favorites • Email • RSS
When I read this, it made me weep. It just breaks your heart. When Adam Ward was gunned down yesterday, his fiance was at work for her last day. Her wedding dress arrived that very day. Her co-workers had brought in balloons, gifts and cake to wish her well as she was on her way to a new job with her new husband. They were going to start a family and were buying a home. All of that was wiped away yesterday morning as an evil psychopath gunned down Adam Ward and Alison Parker as they were covering a story. Hours later, Flanagan, the shooter, would take his own life. Ward’s fiance watched on live TV as he was murdered, not believing what she was seeing. When she found out he was dead, she feinted and had to be taken to the emergency room. Her life was flipped upside down and she will never be the same. She asked that Adam watch over her from heaven and said she would always love and miss her soulmate.
From the Daily Mail:
For Melissa Ott, her last day at WDBJ was supposed to be one of celebration.
But just an hour into the breakfast show, the producer watched in horror as the tragedy unfolded in front of her.
She was in the control room when her fiance Adam Ward, 27, was gunned down during a live broadcast alongside TV reporter Alison Parker.
Colleagues had brought in a cake and balloons to mark her last shift at the Virginia station before she was set to move to Charlotte, North Carolina, with her future husband.
But, on the day her wedding dress was delivered, she watched helplessly as disgruntled ex-colleague Vester Lee Flanagan II walked up to him and fired.
General Manager Jeff Marks said Ott was ‘devastated’ after news of their deaths were confirmed and was reportedly transported to hospital, overcome with grief.
He added that 40,000 viewers saw the shooting as it happened and the reiterated that the station will not be airing the video again.
He said: ‘We are choosing not to run the video of that right now because, frankly, we don’t need to see it again. And our staff doesn’t need to see it again.’
Just hours after the shooting, Ott posted a heartfelt tribute to Ward on Facebook.
She wrote: ‘Today, my entire world was flipped upside down. Starting new adventures with my fiance, new jobs, a new city. Getting married, having a family, buying a home. Thats now taken. Im not ok.
‘And I wont be for a long time. But the enormous outpour of love and support from so many of you near and far is so much appreciated. Adam, I will never find a man so happy, selfless, protective, funny, or charming like you.
‘You were the one. You understood me. My soulmate. I will always love you. Please watch over me and keep me strong. Enjoy the endless tech games in your heaven. I love you so much.’
Another journalist at the anchor’s desk said Ward recently told her, ‘I’m going to get out of news. I think I’m going to do something else.’
Solina Lewis, who described herself as a friend of Ott, spoke highly of Ward in a statement to Breaking911.
‘He was an incredible person, a great journalist and would have been a great father and husband,’ Lewis said.
‘He was sweet, hard working, he came over to my apartment and put furniture together for me without Melissa even there. Even though he had to get up for work and do the early morning live shot the next day.’
Ward’s personal Facebook page is decorated with images of him and Ott, including his marriage proposal to her.
Choking back tears, anchor Kimberly McBroom said: There were a lot of good things happening for Adam. And Alison, wow, she was just a rock star.’
The news anchor’s stunned expression encapsulated the horror that unfolded.
She recalled the series of terrifying events to the New York Daily News.
‘It sounds so cliche, but it was just a typical day.
‘I thought maybe a car backfired. I thought maybe there were shots in the background. The county is kind of rural.
‘I heard (Alison Parker) screaming. I thought she was scared of the sound. I thought there was some kind of explanation.
‘I said something like, ‘We’ll try to find out what that noise was as soon as we can’.
Flanagan was fired from the station in 2013. McBroom said she ‘wasn’t comfortable’ around him and her co-workers remained vigilante, fearing he could do something threatening.
After he fired the shots, her team’s attention turned to Ott.
‘We (were) busy trying to keep her calm and hopeful. That was a very hard thing to do,’ she said. ‘We’re family, you know. We are dealing with this together.’
Just before 7am Wednesday morning, Ward was filming Parker as she interviewed Vicki Gardner, with the local chamber of commerce, about an upcoming event to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Smith Lake.
The two were chatting about how the event would benefit the community when eight gunshots ring out and a look of terror sweeps across Parker’s face.
The women left off screams and attempt to flee before the camera falls to the floor, and a man dressed in all black is seen leveling a gun at Ward.
All of this played out as locals watched the interview live from their homes. When the producer finally cut the feed to the murder scene, the anchor sitting at the desk back in the studio was speechless.
WDBJ’s general manager later came on the air to confirm their deaths: ‘It’s my very very sad duty to report… that Alison and Adam died this morning.’
Meanwhile, Flanagan was already making his way out of Moneta. It’s believed that he first went to a nearby airport where he switched cars with a rental he had waiting and then started driving east towards the Washington, DC area.
All morning, alerts went out across western Virginia, warning that the gunman was on the loose and authorities said they were ‘right behind him’.
However, it wasn’t until five hours later that he was finally brought to a stop in Fauquier County, Virginia, about a three hours drive northeast of Moneta – just before noon.
Reports first stated that Flanagan had committed suicide, but authorities changed their statement to say that he was still alive. Nevertheless, he passed away around 1:30pm at a hospital in northern Virginia.
How do you start over after something like this? How do you put the pieces of your life back together when the person you loved more than anything in this world is ripped away from you? They got up like it was any other day, excited for the new life to come. Adam spoke of leaving the news business and doing something else. He almost made it, but he had a date with destiny and would never return home. Now, Melissa Ott will go on alone with a very big hole in her heart and soul. It’s breathtakingly unfair and gut-wrenchingly tragic. I hate Flanagan for what he did to these kids and I wish that somehow it could be undone. Melissa, Adam will always watch over you and you will see him again some day. My prayers and thoughts are with all of you.
