Western Maryland Residents Hold Candlelight Vigil To Honor Victims Of Smithsburg Shooting
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- A Western Maryland community held a candlelight vigil on Saturday in honor of the people who were shot and killed while at work earlier this week.
Now, the suspect, Joe Louis Esquivel, 23, faces more than two dozen charges, including first- and second-degree murder. He is being held without bond.
The vigil was held at Lions Community Park in Smithsburg, Maryland. Its aim was to help heal a community still in shock that gun violence has come to its doorstep.
Esquivel worked his normal shift at Columbia Machine on Thursday. After working throughout the day, he went to his car and retrieved a semi-automatic handgun around 2:30 p.m., according to authorities.
After that, Esquivel went back inside the building and shot his colleagues.
Investigators say that 50-year-old Mark Alan Frey, 31-year-old Charles Edward Minnick, and 30-year-old Joshua Robert Wallace were killed during the mass shooting.
A fourth employee of Columbia Machine was injured.
In a Facebook post, a woman said the youngest gunshot victim was the love of her life.
"My heart is completely shattered . . . Our future is gone, you're gone," she wrote.
Another woman, Alyssa Sickle, helped to spread the word about the candlelight vigil. She said her small community of roughly 3,000 people is in mourning.
The woman also knows the family of one of the gunshot victims.
"I can't speak for him personally, but his family is amazing," she said. "They are the most selfless loving people. They would give the shirt off their backs and I can imagine he's the exact same way."
During the candlelight vigil, people said prayers and hugged one another.
"they are heartbroken and this was just our way of letting them know that we love them," Sickle said. "We want to wrap our arms around them. And we're gonna take care of them. That's what we do in a small town. We take care of our own."
