On May 6, 2023, a man armed with an AR-15 killed eight people in a brazen attack outside Allen Premium Outlets.
Among them were two young sisters who had captivated their elementary school teachers with their brilliance and ambition. Two devoted parents who were considered perfect opposites. Their 3-year-old son, a boy so young his defining accomplishment was his ability to write his own name. An engineer who left India to see the world. A brother who left Venezuela to escape poverty and violence. A security guard who died trying to help others.
Over the past year, eight families have faced the first birthdays, holidays, anniversaries and traditions without their loved ones. They have seldom spoken publicly about the ways they have chosen to remember and forget.
To keep the stories of the victims at the forefront of the one-year anniversary of the massacre, this is a look back at who they were, based on previous reporting by The Dallas Morning News.
Christian LaCour
The last years — and minutes — of Christian LaCour’s life were rife with sacrifice.
In fall 2020, after nearly a year of remote learning, most kids had returned to Farmersville High School for class, but family health concerns forced Christian LaCour to stay home.
It wasn’t easy, said Steven Nappo, who taught LaCour astronomy and AP calculus. LaCour was talkative, outgoing and extra-inquisitive. He enthusiastically helped struggling classmates. He wanted to feel close to the people around him.
So LaCour asked Nappo to put his iPad on a cart in the middle of the room.
“It felt like he was actually there,” Nappo said. “He was that kind of kid.”
A few months after graduating, LaCour became a security guard at the outlet mall. At 20 years old, he was training to become a security supervisor.
On May 6, amid the horror, panic and chaos at the mall, LaCour again put others before himself.
According to former Allen police Chief Brian Harvey, LaCour was able to escort one person to safety before he was killed after returning to the scene to help. Some witnesses believe he may have saved even more lives, including a man who told Univision the gunman was seconds away from walking into a restaurant when LaCour distracted him.
“When I found out what he’d done, it was not surprising,” Nappo said. “Christian would have done something like that in a heartbeat.”
LaCour’s family references his heroism in the first line of his obituary, but they go on to paint the portrait of a gentle, loving man who was unapologetically himself. They said he was a deep-thinker whose puns brought people to tears. They said his hugs made everything better. They said he was a safe place for all.
Aishwarya Thatikonda
Aishwarya Thatikonda refused to take no for an answer when she asked her father if she could move from India to the United States for college. She had spent all her life in her family home in Hyderabad. This was her time, Thatikonda told him, to see the world.
Her father relented, but not without her older brother calling in a favor to a neighborhood friend, Raj Kumar Dhubba, to ensure she would be taken care of.
Thatikonda and Dhubba, a software engineer in Farmington, Mich., were close during the years she studied construction management at Eastern Michigan University. Thatikonda would spend days with Dhubba in Farmington eating vegetarian biryani, mirchi bajji and pani puri — foods that reminded her of home. She called him anna, or brother in Telugu.
After Thatikonda graduated in 2020, she started working as a project engineer at Perfect General Contractors LLC in Frisco. She bonded with her boss, Srinivas Chaluvadi.
“She found a fatherly figure in me, and I found a daughter-like personality in her,” Chaluvadi said, adding Thatikonda fit right in between Chaluvadi’s kids, younger than his son and older than his daughter.
Naveena Pitta, Thatikonda’s best friend since seventh grade, said Thatikonda had too many unfulfilled dreams when she was killed at 26. She wanted to buy a house, get married and raise a family.
“She was always there for me,” Pitta said. “We wanted to grow old together.”
Elio Cumana-Rivas
Elio Cumana-Rivas moved to Dallas in 2022 to escape violence and poverty in Venezuela. The 32-year-old was awaiting the processing of his asylum application, according to his brother, Gregory Cumana.
Three days before the shooting, Elio called Gregory to wish him a happy birthday. They joked, and the last thing they said was that they both had to look forward to life.
“I don’t understand that my brother died where he was told he was going to be better off,” Gregory said.
In Gregory’s eyes, Elio was the most playful of his siblings, but he was also the kind of brother who kept an eye on everyone and messaged them to see how they were doing.
Elio was closest to his father, Santos Emilio Cumana, a retired military officer and a professor at the National Experimental Polytechnic University of the Armed Forces in Venezuela. Santos called Elio “Papuchi” — “Little Daddy” — which his brothers loved to tease him about.
“He had such optimism,” Gregory said. “Even if the day was gray, the smile never left his face.”
Sofia and Daniela Mendoza
The day before the shooting, Sofia Mendoza made a scrapbook at school. In it, the 8-year-old called herself “Sassafras” and talked about her dreams of becoming an author and an actress.
She was well on her way. On top of being an honor roll student at Cheri Cox Elementary School, Sofia had been memorizing lines for the lead role in her drama class’ upcoming play, Pirate Jane. She had also started writing her own book, The Twins That Didn’t Think Like Twins. Her teachers thought she was whip-smart with impeccable comedic timing.
“There was not a doubt in my mind that she would grow up to be an author,” said Sofia’s reading and writing teacher, Bobbie Jo Roberts. “I just knew I would be reading her book one day.”
Sofia’s older sister Daniela, 11, was nearing the end of fourth grade. Her favorite subject was math, and she excelled at it, according to her math and science teacher Carmen Garcia.
Like Sofia, Daniela had won awards for honor roll and perfect attendance. She was once named “Most Likely to Become a Teacher.” She planned to go to Texas A&M University, and then, she wanted to become a millionaire.
Their mother, Ilda Mendoza, was wounded in the shooting. Her sister, Anabel Del Angel, said Ilda poured herself into her daughters. She went to every swim practice and school event, while always making time to put home-cooked meals on the table.
People would sometimes ask Ilda if she and her husband were planning to have more kids. Ilda would say that in Daniela and Sofia, they already had everything they could ever need.
Kyu, Cindy and James Cho
The morning of May 6 started like nearly every Saturday for the Cho family: At Eddie’s Diner in Plano.
Once settled at their table, Kyu Cho colored alongside then 6-year-old William, who was about to enjoy his favorite chocolate chip pancakes. Cindy Cho shared her plate with a restless 3-year-old James.
Afterward, they drove to the outlet mall to make a return. Shielded by his mother’s body, William left the sole survivor.
“The world is a less joyous place with them gone,” said Phyllis Myung, a family friend.
Kyu, 37, was born in South Korea but raised in Dallas. He got a degree at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and another at Ave Maria School of Law. His staff bio at Porter Legal Group said he went on to become an immigration attorney because he had “a deep pride, respect, and appreciation for the American Dream.”
Cindy, 35, spent her early years in College Station and Houston. She earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Texas at Austin and attended the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio for dental school. At the time she was killed, she was working as a dentist at CK Dental City in McKinney.
The couple were perfect opposites, according to Myung and Jessica Chen, another friend.
Cindy, they said, was quiet, soft spoken and the kind of person who was always first to reach out and check on friends, no matter how busy she was. Kyu was loud and had a purity and childlike demeanor about everything he did.
James was advanced for his age, his day care teacher Trinity Whitley told WFAA-TV (Channel 8). He loved elephants so much he wore them on shirts and bibs.
“I’ve never actually met a 3-year-old that was that smart,” she said.
Staff writers Imelda Garcia, Claire Ballor, Marin Wolf and Brad Townsend contributed to this report.
