 
|
|||||||||||||
              
|
250 say goodbye to Garry Lee, a polite, young man
Wednesday, May 03, 2000 By Mike Rosenwald, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Janet Morris knew Garry Lee his whole life.
Morris worked with Lee's mother at Giant Eagle for more than 20 years, including the months when Zetta Lee worked while pregnant, her belly swollen with the baby who would eventually grow into her stocky, 6-foot son.
She worked for a few years at Giant Eagle with Zetta's son. They would joke around a lot, and she'd often tease him.
The polite, young man insisted on calling her Ms. Morris for a long time, but she eventually persuaded him to call her Janet.
Yesterday afternoon, Morris, along with 250 other relatives and friends, including some 40 employees who worked with Lee at the Giant Eagle in Leetsdale, came to say goodbye to the 22-year-old man who grew up in Aliquippa, right across the street from where his body was laid out.
Lee was shot dead Friday at the C.S Kim Karate school in Center, a victim of what police said was a two-county, racially motivated shooting spree by Richard Baumhammers. Five died and another was critically wounded.
Baumhammers, 34, of Mt. Lebanon, was in the Allegheny County Jail, where he will undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
His attorneys have said that he has been treated since 1993 for mental illness, although they would not be more specific.
Baumhammers told jail officials he was taking Trilafon, a prescription drug that, according to the Physicians' Desk Reference, is used to manage psychotic disorders.
Stephen A. Zappala Jr. and Dale Fouse, the district attorneys from Allegheny and Beaver counties, where the shootings took place, also came to pay their respects to Lee. Earlier, in another effort to coordinate the efforts of their offices, the two went to the karate school where Lee was killed.
Zappala and Fouse have been working out arrangements for the prosecution. They are holding a 10:30 a.m. news conference today at the Center Municipal building to announce their intentions.
They were expected to announce that proceedings will take place in Allegheny County, where there were four homicides and more witnesses than in Beaver County. The number of witnesses and the time they would have to travel to testify is a key in determining where the proceedings should take place, both district attorneys said.
"We're on the same team here," Zappala said outside the Church in the Round, where Lee's funeral will be held at noon today. "We want people to understand that we share a common interest in the result and that's to see that justice is served and that [Baumhammers] is tried."
Justice was on Morris' mind at the viewing, but not as much as the grief she felt knowing that Lee was gone.
"He was such a great guy," she said. "The best. He was the best. He was so, so special."
She brought a white rose to put in his casket, choosing that color for purity because Lee, she said, was "so pure."
Morris made a point of noting the numerous white people who came to Aliquippa to pay their respects to Lee, a black man, saying he brought people together.
Terry Bonager, who also worked with Lee at Giant Eagle, said the entire store staff was taking it hard. Counselors were brought in to help employees deal with their grief.
For Bonager, it's been difficult to go to work, especially when he goes out to the loading dock and sees someone sorting pop bottles, a task Lee often took pride in.
"I keep expecting to see Garry," he said.
Employees wore red and black ribbons to honor Lee's memory and many of the friends he made at the store were wearing them as they trickled into the viewing.
After he came out of the church, Chris Winkler, who trained Lee as a stock boy, had to take a walk through the parking lot to clear his head of the shock of seeing his buddy in a casket.
Lee was dressed in a dark green suit and a black and yellow tie. The casket was surrounded by hundreds of flowers.
Winkler was fighting tears.
"I looked at him and told him what a great guy he was," Winkler said. "I also told him how much I cared about him."
Staff writer Johnna A. Pro contributed to this report.
|
||||||||||||
