Fourth Grader Killed in Uvalde School Shooting Had Asked Her Mother if She Could Stay Home That Day

Courtesy of Linda Gonzales

The morning of the shooting at Texas’ Robb Elementary School, fourth-grader Jailah Silguero had asked her mother if she could stay home.

But with just two days left in the school year, her mom insisted she go to class. “Jailah didn’t want to go to school yesterday,” her grandmother Linda Gonzales told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. “That’s what her momma was really upset about last night: ‘If only I had let her stay home.’”

“The girl was disappointed,” Gonzales added, “She wanted to stay home with momma.”

On Tuesday night, Jailah’s mother Veronica Luevanos learned her daughter was among the 19 children killed when a teenage gunman opened fire inside a fourth-grade classroom at the school in Uvalde. The girl’s little cousin, Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, also died in the massacre.

Gonzales said Jailah and Jayce were the babies of a family that was already in mourning before Tuesday’s horror.

Just a week before, the family mourned the loss of Veronica’s father and held a memorial for him at Jailah’s uncle’s home in Odessa, Gonzales said. “He was in Mexico so they didn’t get to see him,” Gonzales added. “I told Veronica last night, ‘Just look at it as your daddy taking your baby with him.’”

“They were just so sweet,” Gonzales said. “They were sweet kids and lovable. What can you say about little innocent kids?” She said Jayce loved to make people laugh, and Jailah loved to dance and was learning to record Tik Tok videos.

Click here to read more.

SOURCE: The Daily Beast, Kate Briquelet