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Jonesboro eulogizes first of 5 from shooting

Coffin
Paige Ann's casket at the cemetery   
March 27, 1998
Web posted at: 1:54 p.m. EST (1854 GMT)

JONESBORO, Arkansas (CNN)-- Hundreds of somber-faced mourners filed out of a funeral home chapel on Friday, where they had gathered to pay tribute to a 12-year-old girl who was gunned down in a sniper attack at her middle school on Tuesday.

The funeral for Paige Ann Herring, at the Farmers Union Funeral Home, was the first to be held for the five victims who died in the attack. The service lasted about a half-hour.

Paige Ann was not quite two weeks past her 12th birthday when she, three schoolmates and a teacher were killed in an ambush outside Westside Middle School.

A funeral for Natalie Brooks, 11, was set for Friday afternoon. Services for teacher Shannon Wright and students Stephanie Johnson and Brittheny Varner are scheduled for Saturday.

Remembering Paige

Hundreds of mourners began lining up outside the funeral home more than a half-hour before the service began. The crowd -- estimated at 500 -- filled the 300-seat chapel, and spilled into an entryway.

Mourners

"God did not leave Jonesboro on Tuesday," the Rev. Gary Cremeens told the crowd. "God wants us to be (a) beacon of hope, light and love to a world that needs it so badly."

"The healing cannot begin until we forgive," Cremeens said.

A little girl in the second row of the chapel clutched a brown teddy bear and cried as Celine Dion's hit from the movie "Titanic," "My Heart Will Go On," was played.

Four paramedics, dressed in their uniforms, were also in the crowd, as were many of Paige's schoolmates, dressed in the school's red and white jackets.

Mourners
Mourners leave the first funeral   

Near Paige's casket was a picture of her wearing a red basketball uniform, holding a ball, and sitting next to some trophies. A pink and white bouquet rested on her casket.

Reporters were asked to stay away from mourners.

"God hath not promised sun without rain, joy without sorrow, peace without pain. But God hath promised, strength for the day, rest for the labor, light for the way, grace for the trials, help from above," said a Bible verse included on the funeral home leaflet for the young girl.

A remembrance card included a Biblical quote from the Book of Revelations, Chapter 21, verse 4: "And God shall wipe all tears from their eyes."

Two fellow schoolmates -- Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew "Drew" Golden, 11 -- are being held on five counts each of murder and 10 counts of battery. Police say the boys, dressed in camouflage and armed with rifles and handguns, ambushed classmates and staff members who were leaving the school building after the boys triggered a fire alarm.

Under Arkansas law, neither boy can be charged as an adult.

Correspondent Jeff Flock and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 
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