The father of a young woman who died in the Pulse nightclub attack somehow found the strength to forgive his daughter’s killer.
César Flores’s New York-born daughter Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26, was confirmed among the dead.
“I forgive the murderer of my daughter, I cannot live with such great hatred,” said Flores, who is from Guatemala.
“I want you to take better care of your children, see the situation I’m going through. Be together in peace and love one another.”
In broken English, and speaking through tears, Flores said his daughter was “a great girl” who was enjoying her studies at Orlando’s Valencia Community College, but had not yet decided what she wanted to do in life.
“Mercedez, she had so many ideas, so much happening,” he said, adding that the family had moved to the central Florida city of Davenport from New York in 2012.
“She was a very happy girl all of the time, she worked hard.”
Flores also revealed that his daughter had died alongside her best friend, Amanda Alvear, 25, a nursing student who also lived in Davenport, and who was confirmed dead earlier in the day.
“They grew up together, they were best friends,” Flores said. “No words can describe the pain.”
Alvear’s brother Brian told the Orlando Sentinel that he believed his sister was among a number of victims killed as they huddled together in a bathroom stall.
By early afternoon Monday, numbers at a family assistance site set up close to the Orlando Regional Medical Center had dwindled as more relatives learned the fate of their loved ones.
In contrast to Sunday, when families of the dead and missing mingled freely with reporters at a hastily set-up reception site at a hotel close to the hospital, the families were kept apart from the media on Monday at the Beardall Senior Center, a decision made, officials said, to afford them greater privacy.
By 2pm, only a handful of families remained inside with teams of grief counsellors and religious advisers, including representatives of the Islamic Center of Orlando.
