Bill and Aaron Young.Photo:GoFundMe
GoFundMe
Bill and Aaron Young were enjoying a father-son night out at the local bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, whenhorror struck.
Just before 7 p.m. on Wednesday night, a gunman stormed inside Just-in-Time Recreation, a bowling alley, and killed 7 people before heading to Schemengees Bar & Grille Restaurant, where he shot and killed 8 others, authorities say.
Three others who were shot were rushed to local hospitals where they later died. Some children and young teens were at the bowling alley for youth night.
“They’re just innocent people out for a night of bowling,” Bill Young’s cousin, Kim McConville, toldNBC Boston. “This was a children’s event. Who expects a shooter to go into a children’s event?”
Bill had brought his son, Aaron, 14, a high-scoring bowler, to Just-In-Time for a youth league competition, his brother Rob Young told theLos Angeles TimesandReuters.
Robert Card.Lewiston Maine Police Department/AFP via Getty Images
Lewiston Maine Police Department/AFP via Getty Images
On Thursday, Rob and McConville spent the day trying to find any information about Bill and his son, who were last seen at the bowling alley, NBC Boston reports.
She and other family members tried calling his cell phone, but got no answer. They went to the hospital to try to see if Bill and Aaron were there. Rob said he grew worried the minute he learned that his brother and nephew were at the bowling alley where the shooting took place, he told theTimes.
“We had bad feeling from the start,” he told theTimes.
He grew more concerned when Bill didn’t answer his texts. After searching all night for answers online, on Thursday morning Rob flew from Maryland to Lewiston to join his sister in looking for any sign of Bill and Aaron.
But they kept getting stonewalled, he said.
“It was just, ‘Sorry, we can’t tell you anything,’” Rob told theTimes.
At 1 p.m., Maine state police officers came to Bill’s house to deliver the news the family had been dreading: Bill and Aaron were killed in the shooting.
Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up forPEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletterfor breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.
“I knew in my gut, but you can’t start grieving until you actually get the actual person telling you, yes, they are deceased,” Rob told theTimes.
On Thursday, Winthrop High School confirmed Aaron’s death in a statement.
“We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Aaron Young, a Freshman at WHS, and his father, Bill, during the shooting last night,” the statement read.
Another high school student’s uncle was killed in the shooting, the statement added.
Rob described his brother as a “man’s man,” and “life of the party,” he told theTimes.
Bill’s 18-year-old daughter and son Aaron were “the most important thing to him,” Rob told theTimes.
Aaron wanted to be just like him, Young said.
“They were both the apple of each other’s eyes,” Young said, theTimesreports.
AGoFundMehas been created for the Young family.
source: people.com
