The text from her son woke Mina Justice from her sleep.
“Mommy I love you,” Eddie Justice typed as an unhinged gunman rained terror on an Orlando nightclub where he was partying. “In club they shooting.”
Minutes later, he tapped out a message to her to call 911.
“Trapp in bathroom,” he wrote. “He’s coming. I’m gonna die.”
After a few more agonizing minutes, and a few more torturous texts, Justice’s phone went mute, and hours passed before the worried mother got the worst news imaginable.
“It’s just, I got this feeling,” she said as she waited. “I got a bad feeling.”
Mina Justice had waited in anguish for hours before her son’s name showed up on an official list of the dead, which, by early Monday, included the names of only 10 of the 50 people shot and killed.
Those victims included Edward Sotomayor, an employee of a gay travel website and Luis Vielma, who worked at the Universal Orlando Resort theme park.
“Imagine a future moment in your life where all your dreams come true and the greatest moment in your life, and u get to experience it with one person, who’s standing next to you?” Vielma poignantly wrote in his last Facebook post.
“We went for my birthday two years ago, he got us the tickets,” family friend Suemy Orozco said of getting theme park tickets from Vielma. “He was just a nice person like that. He was like my older brother.”
Others killed included Stanley Almodovar, Luis Ocasio-Capo, Juan Guerrero, Eric Ortiz-Rivera, Peter Gonzalez-Cruz, Darryl Roman Burt II, 29, and club bouncer Kimberly Morris, 37.
The bouncer job was Morris’ second part-time job, and she started it less than a week ago.
She asked her friend, Rasheeda Hicks to stop by Pulse, but Hicks said no.
“I feel empty,” Hicks said. “That could have been me.”
Ortiz-Rivera’s aunt Evelyn Rivera, 57, said the victim’s mother is coming in from Puerto Rico on Monday.
“My sister was screaming and crying on the phone,” Rivera said. “She is talking to me the whole day, asking me if I know something about him.”
Almodovar’s Facebook page said he worked as an administrative pharmacy technician and lived in Clermont, Fla.
As the names of those killed at Pulse slowly trickled out, frantic families of the missing gathered at area hospitals and a hotel staging area to wait for news they feared more than anything else.
Guerrero’s boyfriend, Christopher Leinonen, 32, was also killed in the attack, according to his mother’s Facebook post.
“I received a call that no mother should never receive, EVER!” Christine Leinonen wrote. “I am at a complete loss. they have positively identified my son, Christopher. As one of the victims who have lost their lives! The death toll is expected to rise as they continue to identify victims & notify families.
“My heart is extremely heavy & I ask that you all continue to pray for me as well as other family members who have lost loved ones due to this senseless hate crime! I will never understand why or how this happened but i’m trusting God to see us through. I love you Christopher so much.”
The heartbroken mother had driven to Orlando at 4 a.m. after she learned of the shooting from a friend. The last time she spoke to her son was at 6 p.m. on Saturday when she gave him information about an upcoming surgery she is having, according to ABC News.
She said she was very “proud” of her son, who had been active in the gay community for years.
Leinonen said Christopher established the Gay Straight Alliance at his high school, earning a humanitarian award.
“I left him with, ‘I love you, Chris,'” she said.
Leinonen’s name has not been officially added to the tally.
The list of the dead is being updated on a City of Orlando website as authorities work to notify the families of the victims.
“On this very difficult day, we offer heartfelt condolences to today’s victims and their families,” a post on the site said.
“Our city is working tirelessly to get as much information out to the families so they can begin the grieving process. “
At least 53 people were hospitalized, most in critical condition, officials said. A surgeon at Orlando Regional Medical Center said the death toll was likely to climb.
Sara Lopez said her brother Jimmy DeJesus Velasco, 51, came to Orlando from Puerto Rico. He was formerly a principal dancer with Gibaro de Puerto Rico, a renowned company that toured all over the world.
He was in the club with friends who escaped. They all lay on the floor, apparently pretending to be dead. But they saw “a wall of people” fall as they were shot and they got up and ran.
They don’t know what happened to Jimmy.
Lopez’s sister went to the hospital for information.
“We have no idea where Jimmy is,” Lopez said. “The FBI is in charge of the investigation. That’s why the bodies are still at the club. Knowing that Jimmy may be lying there in that floor is killing me.”
With Andy Mai, Nicole Hensley, Chelsia Rose Marcius
