A friend had stated that Katie and Virgil were two of the best people he had ever known. After discovering her husband had died, she ran to telephone the police. She rang the phone twice when she was shot two times in the face. One bullet entered her right cheek and exited behind her left ear, and the other went in just below her lip, breaking her jaw and splintering out several teeth before lodging under her tongue. She ran to a neighbor's house, who then took her to the hospital where she recovered.