In Texas church, a mother threw herself on top of her children as the bullets flew

Mandi Lookingbill was at home in San Antonio on Sunday morning when the phone rang. It was her brother. Had she heard the news? There was a mass shooting 45 minutes away in Sutherland Springs, at the local church their sister and her family attended.

They tried to reach their sister, Joann Lookingbill Ward, but nobody answered her phone.

Then Mandi got a call from 9-year-old Rihanna Tristan, her sister’s daughter.

“Aunt Mandi,” she said between screams. “My momma and my sisters … got shot.”

In all, 26 people were killed and 20 others wounded by the lone gunman who invaded the sanctuary at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs. The death toll includes an unborn child, an 18-month-old and a 77-year-old.

Many were children. The adults included grandparents, stay-at-home moms and a healthcare training professional. They had their faith in common, and came together for things like the church’s fall festival, community bakeoffs or to play in the church band.

Bryan Holcombe — who died with his wife and six other relatives, including one who was pregnant — was a 60-year-old pastor who sometimes filled in at the church, as he was doing Sunday. Three generations of Holcombes lived on a large rural tract dotted with hay bales and a cluster of trees tangled in vines. The land had been in the tight-knit family since the 1800s.

His wife, Karla, cared for her aging mother-in-law and often visited friends in the hospital, said Mike Hopper, 61, a family friend.

Robert Corrigan, 51, served in the Air Force for 29 years before retiring in 2015. He was working for WellMed Medical Group, conducting training sessions. In his free time, he posted folk and Christian music under his SoundCloud moniker “Bobstradamous.”

“He was just so humble. He used to laugh and say, ‘They used to call me a Renaissance man when I was in the military,’ ” Debra Bentley, Corrigan’s colleague and supervisor, said in a statement. “He could do anything, from writing really in-depth healthcare research that got published, to building a barn, to writing music.”

Haley Krueger, 16, served breakfast at the church and wanted to be a nurse for gravely ill babies, said her aunt, Pauline Marrison. She loved children, animals, shopping and fishing with her dad, who died two years ago of pancreatic cancer. Getting involved with church was a way to channel that devastation into something positive, Marrison said.

It would take almost all day Sunday for Mandi Lookingbill and her relatives to learn the toll of the massacre on their family.

The night before, Joann had told her about her plans for Sunday. It was her sixth wedding anniversary. Her husband, Christopher Ward, a truck driver, was working an overnight shift but planned to rest while Joann and their four children went to church. Then they’d all go for a picnic.

“She wanted the kids to be with them,” Mandi said. “She just simply wanted to take her kids and go to the park, and spend the day together.”

Joann was the youngest of nine children who grew up about 90 minutes from Sutherland Springs in the small town of Castroville. She reveled in raising a large family of her own.

Rihanna, the oldest, was her daughter from a previous relationship.

So was Emily Garcia, 7. Emily loved dancing and singing Taylor Swift songs. But the late Selena was her idol. Emily and her mother once went to Corpus Christi to visit to the Selena museum and monument.

The couple had one daughter together. Brooke, 5, was a “little mama’s girl, always attached to mama’s hip,” and could often be found watching the cartoons “Peppa Pig,” “PAW Patrol” or “My Little Pony” on her tablet, Mandi Lookingbill said.

In addition, Christopher Ward had full custody of his son, 5-year-old Ryland, who he had with another woman. “We love that man too and we love his baby boy just like he was blood,” Lookingbill said, adding that Christopher in turn “stepped up and took care of Joann’s babies.”

The four children attended church camp and each Sunday went to services with Joann.

“She’s really involved with the church, with her community, really,” her sister said. “It kind of seems like every time I was talking to her she was doing something for somebody.”

It was Rihanna who would explain to her aunt what happened when the shooting started.

Joann shoved Rihanna to the floor, trying to hide her from the shooter’s line of sight. Then she pounced on the other three, trying to cover them all with her body.

The killer unloaded hundreds of bullets into churchgoers, authorities said.

After he left, a congregant grabbed Rihanna and took her to a back room in the church, where an uncle picked her up.

Authorities told him that Emily and Ryland were being transported to a hospital. Emily later died at University Hospital in San Antonio.

Joann’s family figured that she and Brooke would be at that hospital too, or at one nearby. They spent the day “calling every hospital in San Antonio,” her sister said.

But, she said, “Joann and Brooke were in no hospitals.”

Joann’s brother went to the church with photos of her and Brooke. That night, after he had been there for hours, authorities told him he wouldn’t find his sister and niece in a hospital.

Their bodies were still in the church.

As of Tuesday morning, Mandi Lookingbill had not seen the bodies. Law enforcement had identified Joann from her tattoos, and Brooke from a photo, she said.

She didn’t know where her sister, nieces and nephew were shot or the nature of their wounds.

“It’s not something we want to think about right now,” she said.

Ryland is still not in the clear. He was in critical condition Tuesday after undergoing multiple surgeries, Lookingbill said.

“My sister saved his life because she jumped on top of him,” she said.

Joann “gave her last breath trying to protect those babies.”

Now Lookingbill is taking care of Rihanna, the only one of Joann’s children who was not shot.