Slain TV Reporter's Father 'Crying My Eyes Out' over Deadly Shooting - East Idaho News
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Slain TV Reporter’s Father ‘Crying My Eyes Out’ over Deadly Shooting

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GETTY 82715 WDBJMemorial?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1440663342993Jay Paul/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Andy Parker said his daughter Alison normally called every day.

She liked to check in and get her father’s insights on her reports with WDBJ, a CBS affiliate serving the Roanoke-Lynchburg, Virginia television market.

Alison didn’t call her father on Wednesday. Instead, he received messages from her co-workers — frantic, horrible messages.

Andy Parker learned later that his daughter and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, were fatally shot while filming a live television segment. A former reporter at the station, Vester Lee Flanagan II — known professionally as Bryce Williams — allegedly shot the co-workers. He later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said.

“I’ve been alternating between the shock and the grief of it,” Andy Parker said during an interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly. “I’ve been holding up I guess OK, but I’ve been crying my eyes out all day long. It’s gone back and forth, and now it’s … the anger is starting to creep in there, because this should not happen. It shouldn’t have happened to someone like Alison.”

Parker stood beside his daughter’s boyfriend, WDBJ anchor Chris Hurst, during the Fox News interview. The couple had been dating for nine months.

Hurst said he was “not surprised” after Flanagan was identified as the alleged gunman.

“He was someone who was known by people at the station for volatility,” Hurst told Fox News.

Andy Parker said he’s trying to reconcile what happened, to make sense of it all, to find purpose in his daughter’s death.

“She was happy with her place in life. So we can only take some solace in the fact that she had a wonderful life. She was extremely happy, and she loved [Hurst] with all her heart,” he said. “That’s the toughest thing for me … everybody that she touched loved her, and she loved everybody back, and, you know, I’m not going to let this issue drop. We’ve got to do something about crazy people getting guns.”

Andy Parker said that he spoke to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe following the shooting, and that McAuliffe was supportive of any gun control measures that the grieving father pursues.

“I’m going to do something … whatever it takes,” Parker said.

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