On an otherwise ordinary Wednesday in Edmond, Oklahoma, the morning of August 20, 1986, turned into a scene of unimaginable horror. Inside the Edmond Post Office, Jonna Ruth Gragert, a 30-year-old female employee, was going about her duties, unaware of the tragedy that was about to unfold and cut her life short. The workplace she knew would soon become a place of violence and remembrance.
The perpetrator, a part-time letter carrier named Patrick Sherrill, who was facing the possibility
of being fired, entered the post office armed with three handguns. In a tragic rampage that lasted less than twenty minutes, he moved through the building, targeting his coworkers. Jonna Ruth Gragert was one of the fourteen employees he tragically shot and killed before he turned a gun on himself, taking his own life.
The event, which came to be known as the Edmond Post Office massacre, was a shocking and deeply felt tragedy for the community. In the aftermath, there were no arrests to be made as the lone suspect had committed suicide at the scene of his horrific crime. The day that began with the promise of routine ended in a devastating loss for the families of Jonna Ruth Gragert and the thirteen other victims, leaving a permanent scar on the city of Edmond.
