Victoria Soto's lifelong dream was to become a teacher. Her last moments were spent rushing her students into a closet when gunshots started going off. When the gunman entered her classroom, she shielded her students from incoming bullets.

Soto graduated from Eastern Connecticut State University with an elementary education and history degree and was studying for a master's degree in special education at Southern Connecticut State University. Soto loved spending time with her family and her dog, a black Labrador named Roxie. She had been at Sandy Hook for more than five years, having started as an intern before becoming a teacher.

"It brings peace to know that Vicki was doing what she loved, protecting the children, and in our eyes, she’s a hero,” her cousin Jim Wiltsie said. “She lost her life doing what she loved. I don’t think she would have it any other way. She loved kids. Her goal in life was to be a teacher and to mold young minds, and that’s what she achieved, and unfortunately lost her life protecting those children.”