School Holds Memorial For Slain Villa Park Family
VILLA PARK, Ill. (CBS) -- Family, friends, and a community said goodbye Sunday to a family ripped apart by senseless violence.
As CBS 2's Vince Gerasole reports, Willowbrook High School hosted a memorial for the four people who were killed in their home near Villa Park almost two weeks ago.
Ursula Nailor was shot to death 12 days ago, along with her sons Darnell Holt Jr. and Daniel Nailor, and her niece Dominique Robinson. Their home was then set on fire by Nailor's troubled boyfriend, who later killed himself.
On Sunday, at the boys' high school, hundreds came together to help the family and the community heal.
From a high school chorus singing somber hymns, to the line of embraces for a grieving family, it was clear there were many hearts to heal.
"I know that there are a lot of people here praying for us, with their arms around my family and it makes me feel great. This is the only way I can be standing here today," Ursula Nailor's mother Doris Wallace said.
She lost a daughter and three grandchildren to the senseless killings.
Kyle Rushing, who lost his best friend Darnell Holt Jr., said he would miss Holt's "way of making people laugh when they had a bad day; just so many things about him that I miss."
Holt was Micah Williams' good buddy too.
"He's always so nice. He cares about everyone," Williams said.
Two weeks ago. Cedric Anderson, a man with a long list of drug violations, took his own life with a gun at his family's Dolton home. Authorities said, earlier in the day, he shot and killed girlfriend Ursula Nailor; her sons 16-year-old Darnell Holt Jr. and 13-year-old Daniel Nailor; and her 19-year-old niece Dominique Robinson. After shooting all four, Anderson set their home near Villa Park on fire.
"It didn't just affect me, it affected lots of people," Rushing said.
The deaths of the young boys in particular rocked not only their families, but the community of students at Willowbrook High School.
Since the murders, Willowbrook students have reached out to one another to cope
Principal Dan Krause said, "I think the tragedy that happened brought our community together."
Krause said, in the face of tragedy, students and faculty have come together to help everyone heal.
"Whenever you see young people hurting, obviously the rest of the community rallies around them even, even in the midst of our own hurting," Krause said.
Williams said, "I think it's very amazing how people care enough to get a whole bunch of people together to come to (Holt's) old school and support him."
Ursula Nailor was weeks away from moving her family to Selma, Ala., to be closer to her mother, who said she planned to buy a home in her trailer park to serve as a memorial to her loved ones.
