Three mothers see their eight murdered children for first time since attack

"Friday was the first time they had seen their children - the youngest 3 and the oldest 11 - since that chaotic morning last month when the father of their seven children shot them as they slept. They could see their children's names traced in gold on the lids. The women marveled at the girls' sparkly dresses and the boys' suits, all white, picked by funeral home staff. They could see the boys' hair was neatly trimmed, the girls in braids. As the women, both of whom were shot multiple times in the attack, consoled each other, they repeated how beautiful the children looked. Makeup, hats, strategically placed flowers and barrettes hid their wounds."

""I wish they could wake up from it. This is all like a dream," said Keosha Pugh, the mother of the eighth victim, who came to the viewing separately. She left the funeral home with the help of a walker. She had leaped from a roof to escape the attack, breaking her pelvis and hip in the fall. Pugh, 33, appeared stunned. So did her husband, Troy Brown. He said the children looked "at peace.""

"In the days after the attack on April 19, the mothers decided together to hold one funeral for all of their children. They chose the Saturday of Mother's Day weekend and posted fliers with the faces of the children they now call "the Eternal Eight." Brown said he planned to place teddy bears and crosses in their white caskets at the funeral on Saturday. He didn't trust himself to approach the open caskets on Friday. "They would have had to pry me off,""

Two mothers viewed eight children’s caskets arranged in a semicircle after a father shot seven children while they slept. The children, aged three to eleven, were dressed in funeral home-selected white outfits and styled hair and braids, with makeup, hats, and flowers used to conceal wounds. The mothers consoled each other while seeing their children’s names in gold on the lids. Keosha Pugh, injured while escaping, attended separately and said the scene felt like a dream. Her husband described the children as “at peace” and said healing was progressing. The families chose to hold one funeral together during Mother’s Day weekend, calling the victims “the Eternal Eight,” and planned memorial items like teddy bears and crosses.

Read at The Washington Post