LAKE STEVENS – Christina Rexroad is an accountant for the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, but her faith lies in Christianity.
Rexroad, 29, of Everett, goes to church in Marysville. She dabbles in selling Mary Kay beauty products while raising her 10-year-old son, David. Her husband Jeremy Rexroad died nine years ago.
Seattle police say a man who briefly lived in Everett on Friday shot Rexroad and five other women, killing one of them, at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle.
Pam Waechter, 58, of Seattle, an assistant director at the federation, died at the scene.
Rexroad and the other four women remain hospitalized at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
Police arrested Naveed Afzal Haq, 30, in connection with the shooting at the Jewish charity. A King County District Court judge set his bail at $50 million on Saturday.
On Friday witnesses said Haq forced his way into the office by holding a gun to the head of a 13-year-old girl, declaring himself an American Muslim upset with Israel. Then he opened fire.
He surrendered after police arrived. The gunman spoke with a 911 dispatcher, in a phone call that led police to label the shooting a hate crime.
“Someone getting shot, it doesn’t matter what you believe, it’s wrong,” said Michael Rexroad, of Lake Stevens, Christina’s father-in-law. “Nobody deserves this.”
Rexroad, a Cascade High School graduate, was about an hour from getting off work for the week when the gunman came in and shot her in the stomach.
Rexroad was bleeding so heavily that her heart stopped beating for a few seconds, her father-in-law said.
Her condition was upgraded from critical to serious on Saturday. At best, Michael Rexroad said, she could be home by mid-week.
For now, she’s heavily sedated with a feeding tube down her throat. She can nod her head to respond to questions. Her mother and sister, who also live in Everett, are by her side.
Her son, David, is staying with his grandparents, until his mother can care for him again.
Nobody expected this, her father-in-law said.
“She’s a loving, caring person,” Rexroad said. “She loves her son, she loves her mom and her family. She appreciates everything that people can do for her.”
Haq, the shooting suspect, lived in an apartment near downtown Everett as recently as three weeks ago, said Chris Richey, a neighbor.
Haq only lived in the apartment building on Nassau Street for about a month, Richey said. Haq told him he worked as a late-night cashier, Richey said.
He was friendly, often stopping to talk politics, and seemed concerned with the violence in the Middle East, Richey said.
Once, when Richey mentioned he was a gun collector, Haq told him he had a handgun locked in a safe deposit box, Richey said.
Richey was shocked when federal agents told him what happened Friday.
“He showed no signs of hatred, that’s what really blows me away,” Richey said.
Haq grew up in Richland.
On Saturday a King County District Court judge found probable cause to hold Haq on one count of murder and five counts of attempted murder. He set bail at $50 million.
Haq had requested through a public defender that he be allowed to not personally attend the hearing, and for him to not be photographed or videotaped. The judge denied both requests.
Haq entered the courtroom wearing handcuffs, chains and leg shackles, and a white jail jumpsuit that labeled him an “ultra security inmate.”
Before entering the courtroom, he briefly glanced at rows of news media but otherwise showed no outward emotion. He has not yet been charged.
His family is well-known in the Tri-Cities area’s small Muslim community, and his father was a founding member of the Islamic Center of the Tri-Cities, senior member Muhammad Ullah said.
Ullah, a family friend, described Haq as a loner with a gift for writing. He moved to the East Coast to study dentistry after graduating from Richland High School in 1994, but dropped out.
Haq went on to complete an engineering degree at Washington State University, Ullah said. In March, police arrested Haq for exposing himself at a Benton County shopping mall.
His visits to the Tri-Cities area became infrequent over the years, Ullah said.
In a statement, the Islamic center offered condolences to the shooting victims and said “we disassociate this act from our Islamic teachings and beliefs.”
Abdulah Polovina, Imam of the Bosnian Muslim community in Seattle who occasionally works with a Lynnwood mosque, said Islam does not condone violence as an acceptable way to express anger.
“We must learn to live together in peace and harmony,” he said.
Rabbi Harley Karz-Wagman of Everett’s Temple Beth Or said the Jewish community is mourning Friday’s events.
Two members of his congregation left the Seattle federation office about an hour before shots were fired, he said.
Many people who were still in the building when the shooting happened probably weren’t Jewish, Karz-Wagman said.
Religious organizations usually hire front-office staff as any business would. Also, Jewish workers would have been inclined to leave early to prepare for Sabbath, he said.
Rexroad and two other women also shot in the abdomen were upgraded to serious condition Saturday.
Two others were in satisfactory condition: a 37-year-old woman, five months pregnant, who had been shot in the forearm; and another woman who was shot in the knee, hospital spokeswoman Susan Gregg-Hanson said.
Waechter is survived by two adult children, Nicole and Mark, said Rabbi Jim Mirel of Temple B’nai Torah, where Waechter was a past president.
“She was a person everybody loved, everybody enjoyed being with,” Mirel said. “She was a tireless worker for the Jewish community.”
“This is just an extraordinary shock. We lost a really wonderful colleague, a wonderful friend. It’s hard,” said Nancy Geiger, the charitable organization’s interim chief executive.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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