Friends reel from shooting of teen lesbian couple

Courtesy of Jillian Manuel

Rainbow ribbons, goodbye messages, flowers and cut-out hearts were left near the site where police believe Mollie Judith Olgin, 19, and Mary Christine Chapa, 18, were shot last week in Portland, Tex.

By Miranda Leitsinger, msnbc.com

Friends and family of two teenage girls in a same-sex relationship who were shot in the head in a South Texas park expressed shock and grief Tuesday over the incident in which one of the young women was killed and the other severely injured.

Mollie Judith Olgin, 19, and Mary Christine Chapa, 18, were found in knee-deep grass in a nature area in Portland by a couple Saturday, said Portland Police Chief Randy Wright, who confirmed to msnbc.com details first reported by the Corpus Christi Caller Times.

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Rainbow ribbons, goodbye messages, flowers and cut-out hearts were posted around the site where they were found. On Friday, a candlelight vigil and walk will be held for Chapa and Olgin.

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?It?s something that I think all of us are going to carry with us for a while,? Frank Reyna, a friend of both girls, told msnbc.com. ?It?s going to take a while to get past this, the idea that there is somebody still out there that did this to these two amazing, beautiful people and that they?re walking free right now.?

Olgin, originally from Ingleside but recently living in Corpus Christi, died; Chapa, of Sinton, was rushed to a hospital where she had surgery and was in serious but stable condition on Sunday, local NBC affiliate kristv.com reported. Wright said Chapa was still in the hospital on Monday.

Police are investigating the shooting of two teenage girls in a same-sex relationship in a small Texas community along the Gulf of Mexico. KRIS reporter Lindsay Curtis has the story.

Wright said police had recovered a bullet casing from a large-caliber gun at the scene, but they haven?t found the weapon. A resident living nearby reported hearing two loud bangs Friday before midnight but believed?they were?from firecrackers, the newspaper said.

?If we had a name, you know, we?d be having a different conversation right now. But we have not been able to gather enough information to identify a suspect yet,? Wright said Monday. ?It appears as if ? this was not just a random attack but that?s something that we really have to develop over time.?

Courtesy of Jillian Manuel

A makeshift memorial was set up near the site where police believe Mollie Judith Olgin, 19, and Mary Christine Chapa, 18, were attacked last week in Portland, Tex.

Two calls placed Tuesday to Wright seeking an update on the case were not immediately returned.

Teen lesbian couple found shot in Texas park

Chandler Nunez, who noted that Olgin was one of her best friends in high school, said she was in shock.

? ? I cannot imagine anyone who would want to hurt such a loving and caring person,? she wrote to msnbc.com. ?This was incredibly unexpected and the lack of answers makes this tragedy all the more frustrating.?

Friends told kristv.com that the pair had been a couple for five months. Wright said he didn?t have any information about their relationship, noting that ?we understood from their friends that they were (in a romantic relationship). I know from ? Mollie?s parents that they were very close.?

Reyna, a 19-year-old university student, said he grew up with Chapa, and met Olgin his sophomore year of high school. He described Chapa as an athlete who played softball, and said Olgin, now a student at a nearby university, was focused on academics but also was a big joker. He last saw them together at a local coffee shop in May, which was the first time he saw them out as a couple.

?I?m glad that that was the last time that I saw Mollie in person, that that?s the memory that I can live with for the rest of my life, knowing that I saw her happy,? he said.

The couple?s relationship ?was a readily accepted thing,? he added, and was not what their friends focused on.

?We focused on their personalities and how they got along with everybody else ? their kindheartedness and their ability to just make other people smile and make each other smile,? he said. ?We didn?t care ? what they were, it?s who they were.?

When asked if police had been able to determine if the girls' sexuality played any role in the shootings, Wright told msnbc.com on Monday: ?That?s always something that we?re looking for, but as of this point, we have not been able to establish that that had anything to do with the attack.?

He also said they had been in communication with Chapa. He noted all indications were that ?third parties? were involved in the assault.

The park, more of nature area with some parts overgrown and no lights, was often frequented by visitors during the day, but not at night. It is located along a bluff overlooking a bay, Wright said, with some homes situated nearby.

?We?re not really sure how they got to the point that they were found,? he said. ?It is a scenic overlook with a wooden deck and there is a place at the edge of the deck where you can actually go down a very steep incline into a grassy area that leads down to the shoreline and that?s where they were found.?

Courtesy of Kristen Veit

Charlene Camp, Hilary Avila, Myracle Taylor, Bailey Sanders, Jillian Manuel, Tim Robinson (behind Manuel), Kristen Veit, LuAnn Garza, Valerie Tanon and Franceska Hiracheta were some of the couple's friends and well-wishers who created a memorial at the site around where police believe the young women were attacked last week in Portland, Tex.

While people in the South Texas community prepare for their memorial service, another candlelight vigil for the pair has been organized by Cleve Jones, a gay civil rights activist who conceived the AIDS Memorial Quilt, for Wednesday evening in San Francisco.

"You were taken too soon," Megan Olgin, who identified herself as Olgin?s sister on Facebook, wrote in a post. "I love you and always will. You're my guardian angel. I love you little sister. Forever and always ?"

Editor's note: Chapa's friends spell her name as Kristene, though the Portland police list it as Christine. Calls placed to the police to clarify were not immediately returned.

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