He invited public to attend wife’s memorial, and hundreds turned up

An outpouring of some 10,000 messages and more than 900 floral arrangements, some from as far away as Asia, came flooding in.

Hundreds of mourners attended the memorial on Friday of a woman they had never met, a victim of the El Paso shooting earlier this month, after her husband opened the service to the public. When 63-year-old Margie Reckard died in the Walmart shooting that killed 22 people in the Texas border city on August 3, her husband Antonio Basco thought he would have to bury her alone.

Antonio Basco, husband of El Paso victim Margie Reckard, being comforted by a visitor. (Reuters image)

So 61-year-old Basco, married to Reckard for more than two decades and with no family of his own, asked the funeral home to post the memorial arrangements publicly.

An outpouring of some 10,000 messages and more than 900 floral arrangements, some from as far away as Asia, came flooding in.

And on Friday afternoon some 700 people - in a line that stretched down the street - waited in 38-degree Celsius heat, to pay their respects.

The overwhelming response meant Reckard’s service had to be relocated to a larger facility, La Paz Faith Memorial and Spiritual Center, Perches Funeral Homes said.

“This is incredible,” said Basco, who wept as he greeted well-wishers, in video posted by local media.