Vivian Schronce, an 80-year-old grandmother and great-grandmother, had just returned to her home in Gaston County, North Carolina from Sunday morning church service when she was shot and killed, allegedly by her 88-year-old roommate, Charles Edwin Venn

According to police, the shooting occurred after Schronce confronted Venn about his drinking – police report Venn drank at least two beers while Schronce was at church. During the argument, Venn reportedly fired his handgun several times, striking Schronce once.

“Any time you add alcohol and firearms, it's just a deadly mixture,” [Gaston County Police Captain Jay] Human said.

The Gaston Gazette has a heartbreaking interview with Schronce's daughter, Leanne Catoe. Catoe told the paper she'd just given her mother a haircut on Saturday, so she would look good for Sunday's Mother Day's church service.

“I sat in church beside her, and I had this weird feeling and I scooted closer to her,” Catoe said.

After church Catoe’s 80-year-old mother kissed her and told her to come by for pot pie.

Catoe drove to the grocery store and saw an ambulance go by as she headed back to her mother’s home. A sick feeling settled in her stomach. Catoe hurried to her mother’s home to find paramedics doing CPR on her mother.

“And all I could say was, ‘God, no. God, no.’ And then we get to the hospital and they said that she’d been shot,” Catoe said. “Why would anybody shoot a grandmother, a great-grandmother?”

…

“She’s all I had,” Catoe said. “I’m not ready to be the matriarch of this family.”

Venn is being held without bond in Gaston County Jail and faces a first-degree murder charge.

[Gaston Gazette/Image via My Fox 8]

To contact the author of this post, email taylor@gawker.com