‘He was loved’: Community gathers to mourn stabbing victim
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - Just days after Ashton Murdock was arrested for allegedly stabbing and killing a Colorado Springs man, family, friends, and community members gathered to mourn the death of Andrew Lee Orona.
Orona was homeless when he died, but he touched many people on the Southwest side of the city.
According to Colorado Springs Police, Orona was stabbed underneath a tree at Tamarac Apartments on July 12. Weeks later, community members laid flowers, left chalk-written messages, and placed a rock showing his name under the same tree.
The community in this neighborhood said they want people to remember his name and most of all that he was loved.
Rusty Ellerby lives in the apartment complex and recounts when they first met. "I met Drew about a year ago. He's a very kind man, very calm, never confrontational," Ellerby said.
Ellerby said when she first approached him to introduce herself, "he wasn’t outgoing, he was just quiet and I thought well this is weird," Ellerby remembered.
And even though Drew was on the quiet side, people showed up in droves to the Meadows Park Community Center to celebrate his life.
Aniyah Quintana lives nearby and said, "I wish that he would be here to see all the love and support that he had."
"I think he'd love it. I think he’d get up and start dancing and singing. Oh how he used to bop around," said Ellerby.
Ellerby and Orona became fast friends.
She says she saw him every day for a year.
"He and I both have a birthday in the same month, so I took cupcakes and some ice cream cups out there. Him and I celebrated our birthdays in the first part of May," said Ellerby.
They’d sit on the bench that's now covered in flowers in his memory.
"I mean, he was just so sweet. I don’t know, I just don’t understand, I really don’t, it’s just baffling," Ellerby grappled with the thought.
Those who live in the apartment complex are hopeful Drew's alleged killer will be brought to justice.
Murdock is due back in court next week.
