Santa Monica College officials announced Sunday that Marcela Franco, 26, died at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. She is the fifth victim to die from the shooting rampage that ended on the school’s campus Friday. Counting the shooter, who has been identified in news reports as 24-year-old John Zawahri, the death toll now stands at 6 dead with several injured.
Franco was shot alongside her father, college groundskeeper Carlos Navarro Franco, 68, as they were driving close to campus. The father died Friday and daughter had clung to life in critical condition since the shooting.
“Her family was with her by her side,” Santa Monica College President Chui L. Tsang said in a statement posted on the school’s website. “Marcela had registered to attend classes this summer at SMC and was with her father Carlos when Friday’s tragedy struck.”
As reported earlier in this remembrance, the Santa Monica College Foundation has established a memorial fund honoring Carlos Franco.
UPDATE: Tsang has decided that Tuesday evening’s commencement ceremony will also serve as a memorial service for the victims, City News Service is reporting. The event is scheduled for 6 p.m. at Corsair Field just a few hundred feet from where the rampage culminated.