DENVER – Moments before a gunman leaned against a car to take aim at her father, killing him and nine others in a 2021 mass shooting at a Colorado supermarket, another customer loading groceries next to Erika Mahoney’s dad forced him to he laughed when she teased him about the automatic door lock button.

As Jenny Jacobsen retold the story during the trial that ended this week with the shooter found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, Erika Mahoney found solace during a difficult two weeks by focusing on what happened that day in the college town of Otoczak.

The thought of her father, Kevin Mahoney, sharing his final moment of joy has given Erica Mahoney peace of mind since Jacobsen first contacted her last year to share the story. It also led to a bond with Jacobsen, whom she calls her “earth angel.”

Erika Mahoney said the story sounded exactly like her father, a retired hotel development executive who loved everyone and appreciated a good joke.

“What more could you want, to have laughter and a moment of peace before the most terrible thing,” she said.

It’s one of several connections Erika Mahoney, a journalist and mother of two, has made with those affected by the shooting who have comforted her and provided answers about what happened to her father. These bonds deepened during the trial, which she also faced with the support of the families of all the victims, who, after many court delays, formed a tight-knit group.

“This tragedy shows how interconnected we are,” she said. “We have to find a way to love another person more.”

Since the night of the shooting, she believed that a lack of love might be the cause.

“It’s a shame that the young man behind the gun didn’t receive more love in his life, or maybe this wouldn’t have happened,” she told the judge during Ahmad Alissa’s sentencing.

Erika Mahoney, 34, has become the “soul sister” of another young woman who lost her mother in the shooting: Olivia Mackenzie. Her mother, Lynn Murray, was shopping at Instacart when she died at the checkout. Her father later died of a heart attack that she believed was caused by the shooting. They were reunited a year after the shooting when they met at a coffee shop and both jumped when a loud car drove by, which helped Erica Mahoney realize that it was a sign of the trauma she had experienced.