Family: Husband of teacher killed in Texas school shooting has died of a heart attack
The grief-stricken husband of a teacher killed Tuesday in the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, died on Thursday of a heart attack, his family announced.
Irma Garcia, 48, was one of the two teachers killed in the massacre. Her husband, Joe Garcia, 50, visited a memorial to his wife on Thursday to drop off flowers, his nephew John Martinez told The New York Times, and when he returned home, "he pretty much just fell over." In an interview with NBC News, Martinez said first responders "tried doing chest compressions and nothing worked ... they couldn't bring him back."
Irma and Joe Garcia were married for 24 years, and had four children, with the youngest in their teens.
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Martinez told the Times his aunt was "optimistic about everything and just so loving with the people in her life." He also shared that when law enforcement officers entered Garcia's classroom after the shooting, they "found her body there, embracing children in her arms pretty much until her last breath."
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Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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