Widower of US shooting victim invites whole town to funeral

EL PASO, United States: A large crowd of mourners was expected to attend the funeral late on Friday of a woman whose death in the El Paso mass shooting left her husband with no other family. Margie Reckard, 63, was one of 22 people killed when a gunman opened fire at a Walmart in the Texas border town on August 3, leaving her husband of more than two decades, Antonio Basco, all alone.

"She made me the happiest man in the world and the luckiest. There’s nobody luckier than me in this whole world," Basco told CNN in an interview that aired on Friday. "I’m looking at the front door just waiting for her to walk in. I’ve even tried to call her on the phone," Basco said. Not having any other family, Basco told the Perches Funeral Home, which is arranging his wife’s burial, that he wanted to send out an open invitation to the whole town to attend her service on Friday night.

Harrison Johnson, the funeral home director, told National Public Radio that since posting the invitation on Facebook, the site had been visited more than 11,000 times, with more than 1,000 mourners expected to show up.

He said his funeral home could only accommodate 250 people and was in talks with a nearby church to host the event. A GoFundMe site has also raised more than $25,000 in online donations to help support Basco, who runs a mobile car wash business in the town on the US-Mexico border.