Dreu Kopf was enjoying a peaceful afternoon on Nov. 3, 2005, when she heard a knock on her front door.
Kopf was in her Watonga home with her 3-week and 18-month-old daughters and her best friend, Amber Matthews, was keeping them company.
“Amber looked at me and said there's a man at your door,” Kopf told a packed Canadian County courtroom Tuesday during the Canadian County Candlelight Vigil. The annual vigil recognizes victims, families and friends of crime victims.
Kopf handed the infant to her friend and answered the door.
“He asked me if my husband was home and then what time he would be home,” Kopf said, and then the man left.
A short time later, he was back.
“At this time I got a little irritated because I was trying to rock the baby to sleep. I proceeded to answer the door and the gunshots began. I didn't realize it was gunshots. I knew the glass had shattered, the smell of gunsmoke. I heard my kids screaming, I heard Amber screaming.
“I began to fight with this man while he shot me over and over again. After every shot, he laughed,” she said.
“I screamed at him to please stop. After he had shot me multiple times, in my head, my hands and hip, I begged him to stop, that he could have anything he wanted, that I had kids in the house,” she said.
Kopf managed to run outside where she saw the gunman's truck with the windows rolled down. She got in the truck and took off.
“I made it about a mile down the road where I flagged a semi-truck driver down.” The trucker called 911 and took Kopf to the Watonga hospital.
She was flown by helicopter to OU Medical Center.
About halfway to Oklahoma City, Kopf said, the EMT told her that he had just heard that her children were safe with authorities. At the hospital, her friend's boyfriend walked into Kopf's room.
“I knew from the look on his face that something terrible had happened,” Kopf said. “Then I discovered my best friend had died.”
Two men were involved in the shooting. Both are now in prison.
Kopf said the court hearings were painful because “Amber was gone and I was still here.” She told the audience that she underwent “about 20 surgeries” to repair her wounds.
Kopf said for years she suffered from depression, until she realized the only way to start healing from the emotional pain inflicted by the violence “was to forgive the man who killed my best friend.
“My advice to anyone that is a victim of a crime or is the family of a victim of a crime, the only way to get better is to forgive the person. I knew I had to forgive this man to go on,” she said.
Canadian County District Attorney Cathy Stocker said 2009 started particularly tragic in El Reno with the murder of Summer Rust, 25, and her four children - daughters, Kirsten Rust, 7; Autumn Rust, 6; and Evynn Garas, 3; and her son, Teagin Rust, 4.
Rust's boyfriend, 25-year-old Joshua Durcho, is in the Canadian County Jail accused of the killings.
Stocker said the “rippling effect” of this and any other crime is the reason National Crime Victims Week is so important.
Cindy Baker, Canadian County district attorney victim-witness program coordinator, said about 100 people attended the Tuesday night vigil.
“There were a lot of people there in behalf of children. We've had a lot of children murdered,” Baker said.
Stocker has hosted the vigil in Canadian County for 17 years.
“There are people all across America, in every community who have been victims of crimes,” the district attorney said.
Baker said the vigil is always held in connection with National Crime Victims Week. This year's vigil marked the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the national event.
“The purpose of our candlelight vigil is to bring people of crime and service providers together. It's to let the victims of crime know we care,” Baker said.
Baker said the vigils, held in Canadian and Garfield counties, are believed to be the only two of this kind held in the state.