San Francisco police officer's wife among Las Vegas victims

Stacee Etcheber, a 50-year-old mother of two school-age children, was named among 59 victims killed in a mass shooting in Las Vegas.|

Two days after a lone gunman committed the worst mass shooting in U.S. history at an outdoor Las Vegas music festival, killing 59 people and injuring more than 500 hundred others, the names of his victims are being revealed on social media by family and friends.

A 50-year-old Novato woman attending the concert with her husband, who was a San Francisco police officer, and a Southern California woman who attended high school in San Jose have been identified as two of the people who lost their lives in the shooting.

On Tuesday morning, the family of Stacee Etcheber, the 50-year-old Novato mother of two school-age children, shared the news they had dreaded.

“It's with a heavy heart and deep sorrow, Stacee Etcheber has passed away,” the officer's brother, Al Etcheber of San Francisco, wrote on Facebook. “Please pray for our family during this difficult time. She leaves behind two adoring beautiful children and an amazing husband. Thank you to everyone for all the support in this past few days.

We will dearly miss you…….”

Monday night, word began spreading on Facebook that Michelle Vo, a Southern California woman who reportedly graduated from Independence High School in San Jose, was also among those killed in the shooting. Vo, 32, graduated from Independence High in 2003 and attended UC Davis, according to her LinkedIn page. She worked at New York Life Insurance in Pasadena, according to her Facebook page.

On Tuesday morning, a colleague at New York Life insurance company in Pasadena who knew Vo called her “one of our top agents - very ambitious and a very hard working person.''

The woman, who asked not to be identified, described Vo as a very pleasant and out-going person who was based in the company's Glendale office. She said Vo has been at the company at least three years.

Top agents, she said, have to be go-getters and well-organized - two of Vo's strongest qualities.

The colleague said the office was told on Monday that Vo may have been one of the victims of the shooting, but that it was confirmed Tuesday.

“Everyone is really upset,'' she said.

Las Vegas police identified Stephen Paddock as the lone gunman who opened fire on the more than 21,000 concertgoers from a room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino turned a gun on himself before police broke down the door to his room with explosives.

Vinnie Etcheber, who was off duty when the massacre at the Las Vegas outdoor concert began, urged his wife and their two friends to run while he stayed behind and assisted the wounded.

He spent more than 18 hours trying to find her, searching every hospital in the city.

Martin Halloran, president of the San Francisco Police Officers' Association, described Stacee Etcheber as “a wonderful, caring wife, mother, and daughter.” Halloran said a team of Vinnie Etcheber's fellow officers traveled to Las Vegas to provide support.

“She will be terribly missed,” Halloran wrote in a release. “Our deepest condolences go out to the entire Etcheber family and our thoughts and prayers are with all those who lost a loved one during this tragic attack.”

Others with Bay Area connections were also struck by the Las Vegas tragedy.

Sonoma County native Savanna Chasco was enjoying the country music concert with friends. When the shooting broke out, she ran but was struck by a bullet and could feel the searing pain in her back.

Edward Chasco told the San Francisco Chronicle that his daughter called them at her Rohnert Park childhood home and gave them the news: “She called us at 11:45, telling us not to worry,” he said of his daughter, a 20-year-old junior at the University of Nevada who was treated and has since been released from the hospital in Las Vegas.

A former cheerleader and soccer player with a black belt in taekwondo, Savanna Chasco first declined pain medications so she could be more conscious for one of her friends injured in the shooting. A third friend, who has not been identified, died in the shooting.

“She was having the best time of her life with her friends and the one that passed,” Edward Chasco said. “They are thankful they were able to spend that much time together.”

As the gunman opened fire on the crowd below, a registered nurse from Tennessee named Sonny Melton snapped into action: he had to protect his wife, Heather, a Bay Area native who grew up in Sebastopol and attended Analy High School. They had married in June 2016 and Sonny called Heather the love of his life.

He saved my life,” said his wife, Heather Gulish Melton, an orthopedic surgeon who worked at the same hospital as her husband. “He grabbed me from behind and started running when I felt him get shot in the back.”

Sonny Melton was a registered nurse from Paris, Tennessee, just 29 when he died, one of the 59 people caught up in the gunfire at the Route 91 Harvest Festival.

In a heartbreaking Facebook post, Heather said “Sonny was the most kind-hearted, loving man I have ever met. He saved my life and lost his.”

Sonny Melton worked in the emergency department at Henry County Medical Center in Paris, Tennessee. His wife works at the hospital and he aided her in the operating room. They had married in 2016.

Kim Schubert, a 47-year-old resident of Petaluma, was standing in the middle of the crowd when bullets began flying and people around her started dropping to the ground. She told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat that people next to her and behind her were shot, just moments before the music on stage stopped and the night turned into a living hell.

“We all just got down on the ground and started crawling,” said Schubert. “The shooting just kept going. Constant. It never stopped, just kept going and going and going.”

“It was a massacre,” said Schubert's friend, Jennifer McGrath of Sebastopol, a real estate agent who was with her husband Justin. “I don't know how we survived. Everybody who got shot was within 100 feet of us. We were right in the fire.”

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