Nine years after mass shooting in Las Vegas, Alaska family mourns a lost son while survivors reflect on the night

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Thursday marks nine years since 60 people were killed and more than 800 were injured at the Route 91 Country Music Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Content warning: This story contains survivor accounts of gun violence that some readers may find distressing.

Believed to have been perpetrated by 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, One October remains the deadliest mass shooting in American history.

Two Alaskans, 49-year-old Dorene Anderson and 35-year-old Adrian Murfitt, were among those killed during the shooting.

Murfitt’s mother, Avonna, described her son as an avid hockey player with a love of fishing.

“He had a really infectious laugh,” she said.

Murfitt told Alaska’s news Source that her son had decided to go to the music festival in Las Vegas with a friend to celebrate a successful season of commercial fishing.

“He called me the very day that it happened and wished me a happy birthday and wanted to know what I wanted for my birthday,” she said.

“He was going to get me something in Las Vegas because he knows I like sparkle.”

Murfitt said she was preparing to go to sleep when she heard news of the shooting.

“I happened to be watching the news at the time, and CNN popped up and said that there had been a shooting at the concert.”

Jolene Bennett, a lifelong Vegas resident, told Alaska’s News Source that she was watching Jason Aldean perform when the shooting began.

“When the first, the shooting first started, it was the shooting and then it was paused,” Bennett said.

“You were like, ‘was that a gunshot?’ And then he started playing again, and then it really went off.”

Jody Ansell was also at the festival, making the trip from Canada with a friend.

“My friend got shot in the stomach and I see her drop,” Ansell said.

“That’s when I bent down to see if she was okay and then I got shot.”

Bennett said she entered “fight or flight mode”, grabbing onto her friend, Karen Sherman, and rushing towards an exit.

“There were people were climbing up the fence to get to the other side because you couldn’t get out. I was going to launch [Karen] over and then all of a sudden, the fence started to come down,” Bennett said.

“We were able to run around and thankfully our car was parked over there in that employee parking and we get in the vehicle and we start to drive and we start loading other people that are just running into the back of her car, and that’s when Karen sees Jody and she goes, ‘Oh my gosh, that girl has no shoes on and she’s been shot.’”

Ansell had been shot clean through her arm, near her elbow. Bennet said she and her friend ushered Ansell into the car, before driving away from the festival grounds.

“She was bleeding all over, and so I took my shirt off and made a tourniquet and held her arm up and applied pressure,” Bennett said.

“There were cars everywhere and people all over, and so we weren’t able to get out to take her to the hospital.”

Bennett said she drove to a nearby helicopter hangar, where a nurse was able to begin tending to Ansell’s wounds. As the shooting continued, the two strangers hid for cover inside the hangar.

“Some of the hardest things were when we were in the hangar and he continued to just shoot,” Bennett said.

“You could hear the shooting the entire time and then they thought because he was shooting at the tank next to us that he was out right outside.”

The shooting eventually ended after Paddock allegedly died by suicide. Ansell was taken to a local hospital for her wounds.

Murfitt desperately tried to make contact with her son. After he didn’t answer his phone, she reached out to his friend who went to the festival with him.

“He finally called me back about six in the morning and told me that Adrian had died in his arms,” Murfitt said.

“I had survivor’s remorse really bad and I was so upset I couldn’t get it out of my head,” Bennett said.

Ansell was now in a hospital thousands of miles from her home. As fate would have it, however, she dropped her phone in Bennett’s car as she drove from the festival grounds.

“That’s how we actually reconnected, and she got a hold of us, and we got a hold of each other,” she said.

Nine years later, the two remain close, visiting each other multiple times throughout the year.

That same year, the Las Vegas Golden Knights would make it to Game 6 of the Stanley Cup during their freshman season; a shared love for hockey continues to connect the two survivors.

“We always go to a game every single year,” Bennett said.

Murfitt was laid to rest by friends and family, while the Alaska Legislature joined in the mourning with an obituary honoring his memory.

“He had a really nice celebration of life, far more friends than I ever thought, and friends from his childhood came,” Murfitt said.

“I know he’s missed by many of his friends.”

On Friday, a permanent memorial for the victims of the shooting will break ground. Its first phase is expected to be completed by October 2027, to coincide with the 10-year anniversary of the shooting.

“It’s going to be a big moment, because even though we had the memorial downtown by the Arts District, it’s not the same,” Ansell said.

“I am going next year with a large group for the dedication,” Murfitt said.

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