{"id":365309,"date":"2025-12-23T09:54:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T09:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/365309\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T09:54:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T09:54:16","slug":"hundreds-mourn-brown-university-sophomore-ella-cook-at-alabama-funeral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/365309\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds mourn Brown University sophomore Ella Cook at Alabama funeral"},"content":{"rendered":"

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) \u2014 A Brown University sophomore who was killed in an attack at the Rhode Island university was remembered Monday as \u201csmart, confident, curious, kind, principled, brave,\u201d at a funeral in her home state of Alabama.<\/p>\n

WATCH: Investigators search for motive after shooter linked to Brown University, MIT found dead<\/a><\/p>\n

Hundreds gathered at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in downtown Birmingham to remember Ella Cook, 19. She and freshman MukhammadAziz Umurzokov, 18, were killed Dec. 13 when a gunman entered a study session in a Brown academic building and opened fire on students. Nine other students were wounded.<\/p>\n

Authorities believe the attack was carried out by Claudio Neves Valente, 48, who had been a graduate student at Brown studying physics during the 2000-01 school year. Neves Valente then fatally shot Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro at Loureiro\u2019s Boston-area home two days later, officials said.<\/p>\n

Neves Valente, who had attended school with Loureiro in Portugal in the 1990s, was found dead days later<\/a> in a New Hampshire storage facility, killed by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. An autopsy determined that Neves Valente died Dec. 16, the same day Loureiro died in a hospital.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Cook\u2019s family invited attendees to wear \u201cEaster colors,\u201d underscoring Cook\u2019s Christian faith, at an Episcopal funeral service that also nodded to the Christmas season.<\/p>\n

The Rev. Paul F.M. Zahl, who formerly led the church, read from several letters written by members of the Brown community to Cook\u2019s parents, Anna Bishop Cook and Richard Cook, who raised Ella and her two younger siblings in the affluent Birmingham suburb of Mountain Brook.<\/p>\n

\u201cElla was smart, confident, curious, kind, principled, brave. She had a big impact on campus in only three semesters,\u201d wrote Brown professor of political economy David Skarbek. \u201cI used to tell Ella, \u2018We need an Alabama to Brown pipeline.\u2019 In fact, her nickname on campus was Ellabama.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zahl told the congregation that the funeral was \u201ca kind of bigger stage, a kind of more amplified mic\u201d for Cook to spread her Christian faith. Zahl said he dreamed last week that he was skiing behind Cook and her family. \u201cElla turned around and shouted confidently, self-assuredly, \u2018Come on, will you?’\u201d he said, saying he believed God had shown himself through the dream.<\/p>\n

\u201cI pray now that everyone who has loved Ella so much in this life would be given a vivid, individual feeling of Ella\u2019s love, still present with us,\u201d Zahl said. \u201cBecause Ella\u2019s love is eternal and entirely altruistic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cook was an accomplished pianist who was studying French, math and economics at Brown, where she also served as vice president of the college Republicans. Her political activity brought a wave of reaction from national and Alabama Republicans. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey ordered flags to be flown at half-staff statewide in Cook\u2019s memory.<\/p>\n

\n A free press is a cornerstone of a healthy democracy.\n <\/p>\n

\n Support trusted journalism and civil dialogue.\n <\/p>\n


\n Donate now<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) \u2014 A Brown University sophomore who was killed in an attack at the Rhode Island…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-365309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}