Family: Slain San Bernardino Teacher 'Gentle And Soft-Spoken'
POMONA (CBSLA.com) – The uncle of slain North Park Elementary School teacher Karen Smith described her Tuesday as "gentle and soft-spoken and a quiet person."
"There's no one who would've been less deserving of this kind of thing than Karen was," Henry Alexander told CBS2 Tuesday. "She was a person who was always doing what she was supposed to be doing all the time. She was always doing the right thing. So this is kind of an ultimate irony."
Alexander is a senior pastor at Shield of Faith Church in Pomona, which held a prayer vigil for Smith pn Tuesday night.
"She was a very quiet, very conservative person," Alexander said. "If you look in the dictionary for 'good girl,' there's her picture. She was just the embodiment of reasonableness and conservatism godliness."
FULL COVERAGE: San Bernardino school shooting
San Bernardino police said Smith's estranged husband, Cedric Anderson, 53, entered her special-needs classroom Monday morning and opened fire on her. Two students standing behind her at the time were also struck by gunfire. Eight-year-old Jonathan Martinez was killed. A 9-year-old student was critically hurt.
Anderson then turned the gun on himself, police said.
Anderson and Smith had only be married three months when the shooting occurred. Alexander said he was unable to attend their wedding in January and had doubts about the marriage.
"I was very surprised to find out they were proceeding with a wedding," Alexander said.
Smith, 53, was a mother of four and a grandmother.
Police said Anderson was able to enter the school by simply telling the front office staff he had something to drop off for his wife.
