Daughter finds ‘angel of the earth’ in woman who made her father laugh before Colorado supermarket shooting

By COLLEEN SLEVIN

DENVER (AP) — In the moments before a gunman leaned on a car to train his aim on her father, killing him and nine others during a 2021 mass shooting at a Colorado supermarket, a fellow shopper was loading her groceries next to Erika Mahoney’s dad made him laugh when she teased him about his automatic door lock button.

When the story of Jenny Jacobsen was retold during a trial that ended this week and the shooter was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, it gave Erika Mahoney some comfort during a difficult two weeks in which she focused on what was going on Boulder happened that day in the university town.

The thought of her father, Kevin Mahoney, experiencing one final moment of joy has given Erika Mahoney some peace of mind since Jacobsen first came forward to tell the story last year. This also led to a bond with Jacobsen, whom she calls her “angel of the earth”.

Erika Mahoney said the story sounded just like her father, a retired hotel developer who loved everyone and appreciated a good joke.

“What more could you ask for, that there was some laughter and a moment of peace before the most terrible thing,” she said.

It’s one of several bonds that Erika Mahoney, a journalist and mother of two, forged with people affected by the shooting who gave her comfort and answers about her father’s fate. Those bonds deepened during the trial, which she also faced with the support of all the victims’ families, a close-knit group after many court delays.

“This tragedy proves how connected we all are,” she said. “We have to find a way to love each other more.”

Since the night of the shooting, she has suspected that a lack of love could be responsible.

“I wish the young man behind the gun had experienced more love in his life, because maybe this wouldn’t have happened,” she told the judge during Ahmad Alissa’s sentencing.

Erika Mahoney, 34, became a “soul sister” to another young woman who lost her mother in the shooting: Olivia Mackenzie. Her mother, Lynn Murray, was working as an Instacart shopper when she was killed at a checkout line. Her father later died of a heart attack, which she believes was caused by the shooting. They became friends a year after the shooting when they met at a coffee shop and both jumped when a loud car drove by, making Erika Mahoney realize it was a sign of the trauma she had suffered.

During the trial this month, they attended a yoga class attended by mostly older people. Erika Mahoney said it felt like being in the same room with your parents.

“We felt so loved and connected to each other,” Mackenzie, 28, said.

During the trial, Erika Mahoney witnessed her father’s final moments of terror for the first time. Previously, she had thought that maybe he was shot, not knowing what happened. But in court, she saw surveillance video of her father, her protector, fleeing the gunman in the parking lot and trying to return to the store. He eventually fell in the main driveway leading to the store.

Shaken by the image, she stayed home from court the next day but watched online as witnesses testified, including police officer Richard Steidell, who ended the attack by shooting and wounding the gunman.

Steidell’s testimony was another consolation for Erika Mahoney: He told jurors that he later removed Kevin Mahoney’s body from the parking lot so that it would not be run over by an armored vehicle brought in to protect police before Alissa finally surrendered .

Erika Mahoney previously believed her father’s body was left alone where it fell for hours after the shooting and investigation. She hated the thought and said she sometimes imagined herself lying on the floor with her father, holding his hand and imagining how he died.

She got Steidell’s number and contacted him via text to thank him.

“It’s funny the things we become grateful for,” she wrote.

Steidell said that after the shooting it was difficult for him to see and move the bodies of Mahoney and a woman shot near the entrance. So her gratitude was a comfort to him too.

“It helped me tremendously,” he said.

During the trial, Jacobsen explained what led to that last laugh with Kevin Mahoney in March 2021, when social distancing measures were still in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She said she absentmindedly followed him too closely as they left the store, so she apologized and he smiled. She gave him more space, but then realized they were parked next to each other.

They smiled at each other and put their purchases in the trunk at the same time. After Kevin Mahoney pressed a button that locked his trunk with a beep, Jacobsen teased him by saying, “Ooh, fancy,” to which he laughed loudly and threw his head back before leaving to return his shopping cart. Seconds later he would be dead.

She also told the witness stand how she ducked under her steering wheel to hide after hearing the shooting start. She flinched with every shot, she said, and her body shook because she feared she would be shot. She thought about her daughter. When she finally looked out the window, she said she briefly made eye contact with Alissa and then saw him focus on the woman near the entrance, Tralona Bartkowiak, and shoot her before walking through the sliding doors.

“The only thing that separated us that day was that he had a cart and I didn’t have a cart,” she said later.

Jacobsen said she believes Erika Mahoney will now be in her life forever.

“I could tell her this story every day if she wanted,” she said.

Erika Mahoney said it broke her heart to hear Jacobsen thinking about her daughter while hiding. Jacobsen’s experience also made her think again about her father’s final moments in light of her father’s fatal chase seen on the video. She now believes that her father also thought of his family in his final moments.

“He fought hard for life,” she said. “He had some time to think about life.”