HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. (AP) -- For more than six months, the residents of Littleton have worked to put things back together in the aftermath of the nation's deadliest school shooting.
Those efforts were shattered last week, when Carla Hochhalter -- whose daughter was critically wounded in the Columbine High School shootings -- committed suicide at a pawn shop.Hundreds of people attended her funeral Wednesday.
"It just doesn't seem to quit," said Bob Palmer, a member of Christ Lutheran Church, where about 700 people, including many from the Columbine community, filled the church's main sanctuary.
"Things seemed to be settling down and getting back to normal, and now this has happened," Palmer said. "It's terrible."
Police said Hochhalter, 48, walked into an Englewood pawn shop Friday and asked to see a handgun. When the clerk was distracted, she loaded it with her own ammunition and killed herself.
Relatives have said she suffered from clinical depression since 1996, and that the Columbine massacre and her daughter's grave injuries were more than she could handle.
Her daughter, Anne Marie, 17, was shot in the spinal cord when seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold began their gun and bomb attack at Columbine on April 20. Twelve students and a teacher died, and more than 20 others were wounded before the gunmen killed themselves.
Anne Marie Hochhalter, 17, who was partially paralyzed, was released from a rehabilitation hospital in August. Several days before her mother's death, she said she moved her legs for the first time during a therapy session.