Both victims were devoted mothers, family members say

Story updated at 2:36 p.m., Oct. 3, 2017.

At least two Thousand Oaks residents were killed during Sunday’s Las Vegas massacre that left nearly 60 people dead and more than 500 injured, the Acorn has learned.

Keri Galvan, 31, and Laura Shipp, 50, were confirmed today among the dead at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

Galvan, a mother of three young children, was attending the country music festival with her husband and a group of friends. Shipp, a member of the Thousand Oaks High School Class of 1985, went to the show with her son, Corey, a Marine Corps reservist who tried in vain to locate her after the two were separated during the chaos that followed the gunfire.

On Tuesday, Galvan’s sister, Lindsey Poole, set up a GoFundMe page for her sister’s children, ages 10, 4 and 2. She said Galvan, who worked as a server at Mastro’s Steakhouse on Thousand Oaks Boulevard, was a devoted wife and mother and described her murder as “senseless.”

“Her days started and ended with doing everything in her power to be a wonderful mother,” Poole wrote on the page, gofundme.com/kerilynngalvan.

According to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, 64-year-old Stephen Craig Paddock of Mesquite, Nev., opened fire around 10:08 p.m. Sunday from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, about 1,000 feet from the crowd. Galvan, Shipp and other concertgoers were at an outdoor venue near the intersection of Giles Street and Las Vegas Boulevard listening to country music star Jason Aldean perform when the bullets began to rain down from above.

Within minutes, police arrived at Paddock’s room and broke inside, where he was found dead. Police say he shot himself and that (at least 10 rifles were found inside. The latest reports have the figure at 20.

The motive for the shooting remains a mystery.

Corey Shipp, a Thousand Oaks High School graduate who now makes his home in Vegas, posted on Facebook Monday that he was trying to find his mother. On Tuesday, another family member posted that Las Vegas authorities had contacted the family to say Laura Shipp was identified among the dead. Shipp spent much of her life in Thousand Oaks before moving to Vegas five years ago to be closer to her son, a friend said.

“From the bottom of our hearts we would like to thank each and everyone one of you who have thought of our family during these past couple days,” a post attributed to Laura Shipp’s niece Paris said. “We were all together last night when we received the news that Laura passed away…”

A GoFundMe page has been set up to help her surviving family members: gofundme.com/family-support-and-costs.

“Those of us who know Laura can attest to her huge heart and contagious spirit,” Paris Shipp wrote. “We ask that you all remember her that way, just as we will.”

Aimee Mack, who was best friends with Shipp at TOHS—both were members of the class of 1985—said she’s in shock.

“Of all the people, I would have never have thought this would happen to Laura,” she said. “She was always the rock of the group, you always knew where you stood with her and she was a good friend to have.”

Mack said Shipp was a huge Los Angeles Dodgers baseball fan and loved country music.

This story will be updated once more information comes available.