Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Hundreds mourn slain Lynchburg teens
Slain Virginia Tech students Heidi Childs and David Metzler were remembered as lively, fun, caring people before being buried beside each other Monday.
Photos by KYLE GREEN The Roanoke Times
Above: The funeral procession for Heidi Childs prepares to leave Heritage Baptist Church after her funeral service Monday. Left: The casket of David Metzler is carried from Heritage Baptist Church to an awaiting hearse after his funeral service Monday.
Photos by KYLE GREEN The Roanoke Times
Above: The funeral procession for Heidi Childs prepares to leave Heritage Baptist Church after her funeral service Monday. Left: The casket of David Metzler is carried from Heritage Baptist Church to an awaiting hearse after his funeral service Monday.
KYLE GREEN The Roanoke Times
The family of Heidi Childs, including her father and mother, Don and Laura Childs (middle right), watches as her casket is loaded into a hearse after her funeral service Monday at Heritage Baptist Church in Lynchburg. Heidi Childs and her boyfriend, David Metzler, were killed last week at a national forest campground.
The investigation: Ongoing coverage
From today's paper
Earlier coverage
- Funerals for Tech students set for Monday afternoon
- Police still seek leads in deaths of Tech students
- Few clues, many tears in deaths of Tech students
- Caldwell Fields neighbors did not hear shots
- Dan Casey: Neighbors shaken after meadow becomes killing field
- Police seek suspects in Virginia Tech students' killings
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Heidi Childs and David Metzler, seen here in a photo from her Facebook profile, were inseparable.
Statements
LYNCHBURG -- David Metzler and Heidi Childs -- Virginia Tech students who were slain last week -- were eulogized Monday in the church where many of their friends thought the two sweethearts would one day get married.
But instead of a joyful throng celebrating a wedding at Heritage Baptist Church, a crowd of tearful mourners sat before two caskets -- Metzler's of brown wood, Childs' a delicate shade of pink. Instead of groomsmen and bridesmaids, there were pallbearers.
"The thought has crossed my mind before that I might be standing before Heidi one day with David at her side in front of a very large crowd," said Kent Gregory, student ministries pastor at Heritage Baptist, as he looked out over the crowd of nearly 1,000. "But that was a different ceremony."
"As a father with girls, you always wonder what kind of boy is going to show up at your door," said Heidi's father, Don Childs. "We fathers have standards that are way higher than most boys can ever hope to reach. David met those standards."
Metzler, 19, of Lynchburg and Childs, 18, of Forest were apparently shot to death at the Caldwell Fields area of the Jefferson National Forest in Montgomery County, a campground popular among Tech students. Investigators said they were last heard from about 8:30 or 9 p.m. Wednesday; their bodies were found Thursday morning. No suspects have been named.
Don Childs told the mourners who had come to share his grief that earlier on Wednesday his daughter had called home excitedly to say she was switching her course of study to a pre-med curriculum and wanted her parents' approval. She also told them that Metzler had planned a "special date" for her that evening that involved building a campfire.
"It never happened," Don Childs said. "The angels came and escorted them to heaven."
In consecutive funeral services that spanned nearly four hours, friends of the two Tech sophomores recalled them as lively, fun, caring people who were both strong in their Christian faith. Both were active in youth groups at Heritage Baptist, and both had joined Campus Crusade for Christ when they enrolled at Tech last year.
The two were also close to their families. "He was a good son," Susan Metzler said of David. "He loved us and he demonstrated that in many, many ways. I don't think he ever left home or ended a telephone call or a text without saying, 'I love you.' "
Kristen Rodriguez, one of Heidi Childs' five sisters (she also had two brothers), recalled that Childs was always smiling. As a toddler, Childs stood at her bedroom window in the morning and yelled, "Hi!" to the neighbors in the street with their coffee cups and morning papers, Rodriguez said. "We are extremely sad and heartbroken. We just have to remember the light that she stood for."
After the services, hearses carried their bodies to Virginia Memorial Park, a cemetery in Bedford County, where, according a funeral home official, Metzler and Childs were buried side by side.
