Parents of slain Philadelphia teacher urge gunman to come forward
CHELTENHAM, Pa. (CBS) -- The father and mother of the teacher killed in a Dunkin' parking lot in Montgomery County are demanding justice.
Rachel King, 35, was killed on Tuesday, and her parents are urging the daughter's killer to come forward.
Students and staff at Grover Cleveland Elementary School, the school King taught, honored her memory Thursday.
"She was someone I deeply admired," Allen King, the victim's father, said.
"Our lives have been turned upside down, things will never be the same for us," Carol King, Rachel's mother, said.
Allen and Carol King described their 35-year-old daughter as someone with an infectious smile and a loud voice, despite her size. She was just under 5 foot, 2 inches.
"I would tell her sometimes you don't have to call me on the phone," Allen King Jr. said. "Just raise your window, call out the window, I'll hear you."
Only CBS News Philadelphia was there as a balloon release was held by students and faculty at Grover Cleveland Elementary school in Philadelphia's Tioga section to honor King's life, where she taught history for more than a decade.
"She just simply absolutely loved her students. And it didn't matter what kind of background they came from," Allen King said.
But the dedicated teacher and mother was taken too soon.
King was driving her son to violin practice Tuesday morning when she went to a Dunkin' drive thru in Cheltenham. That's where police say a man driving a light-colored sedan - that was captured on security cameras - got out of his car, walked up to King's vehicle and fired multiple times.
King died as her 11-year-old son was in her SUV's backseat.
"He said his mom seemed to want to move and put her foot on the gas to move them but she couldn't do it. And the car went into a tree," Carol King said.
Carol King added that her daughter tried to get away.
King's son ducked during the shooting and never saw the gunman. But after he saw his mom bleeding heavily.
"He shared with us that he shook his mom and told her to wake up," Carol King said.
It was too late.
Now, King's parents have a message to the gunman.
"We ask that you turn yourself in. We would want that. Turn yourself in," Carol King said.
Investigators believe King's killing was targeted but detectives are still working to learn a motive.
No arrests have been made.
