Before fatal bullet at First Fridays, woman was ‘living her best life,’ family says
Tom Langhofer received an email Monday that illustrated his daughter’s work as a therapist for survivors of domestic violence, a career she was deeply passionate about.
It came from one of her clients, who wrote Tom Langhofer to say his 25-year-old daughter, Erin Langhofer, helped her escape 14 years of abuse. Erin Langhofer had brought her hope, the email said, and made her not feel guilty about the situation she was in.
The woman said Erin Langhofer assisted her and her two daughters “beyond anything she could imagine.”
Langhofer’s life was cut short Friday night when she was struck by a bullet near 18th and Main streets as she stood beside a group of food trucks with her boyfriend. The area was still crowded with thousands of people from First Friday activities in the Crossroads Arts District.
Police officials described Langhofer as an innocent bystander.
Deon’te Copkney, 18, of Kansas City, was charged with second-degree murder, among other crimes, in the killing. Copkney allegedly told detectives he shot toward a crowd of people after he was attacked by someone else, and didn’t intend to hurt anyone when he fired every bullet in his gun.
Since the shooting, dozens of people have filled Langhofer’s family home in Overland Park to remember the vivacious woman, who loved ones said could make any stranger feel like the most important person in a room.
Sitting at their home Monday, Langhofer’s parents recalled how their mischievous daughter, as a child, would play in a creek with a friend, using the mud to sculpt their hair and form pretend beards.
Langhofer’s dad joked that his daughter got her intelligence from her mother. The mother, in turn, said their youngest daughter got her silliness from her father.
By the time she got to college at the University of Kansas, Erin Langhofer was searching for a purpose. She knew she wanted to help others, but it wasn’t until her internship at Safehome, which supports survivors of domestic abuse, that she found her cause.
She worked as a courtroom advocate in Johnson County during her junior year, her family said.
“That really lit a passion in her,” her mother Marcy Langhofer said.
From then on, it was clear she would be a social worker, acting as a voice for the people she aided, her family said.
Langhofer had done a practicum at Stormont Vail Hospital in Topeka. But there, she told her father, she wasn’t able to build a relationship with her patients. She wanted to understand their lives. She wanted to see people through their trials and tribulations.
She went on to work at Rose Brooks, a domestic violence center that serves the Kansas City area. At the request of her family, the center has since set up a memorial fund in honor of her.
“It was a huge part of who she was,” Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said during a news conference Saturday to announce charges against Copkney, who did not yet have an attorney listed in court records who could be reached for comment.
In a statement read by family friend Michael Eagan during the news conference, Langhofer’s parents said they were devastated by the death of their daughter and the impact it will have on others, including the “life of the young man who pulled the trigger.”
Langhofer’s sister, 27-year-old Kathryn Langhofer, traveled back from Austin, Texas, where she lives, to be with family. She called her sister her best friend; they enjoyed traveling together but also sitting back to drink wine, she said.
Langhofer made time to be with her family. When her mother was overseas, she came over to cook several meals for her father, putting them in containers to make sure he ate. She also went with him to pick out shirts.
She’d tell her father, a pastor of recovery ministries at the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, that he needed to remember to take the time to care for himself. She prodded him all the time about it, he recalled fondly.
Langhofer struggled with her faith three years ago when her best friend died of cancer. She was angry at God, something her father said was OK. She recently told him to not get too wound up about it, but that she “might be coming around.”
Among other things, Langhofer loved to scuba dive, her family said. Floating in water brought her tranquility.
On his way to work Thursday, Tom Langhofer sent a text to his family’s group message to say he was grateful for them. The responses came in quick. He was at peace knowing nothing was left unsaid with his daughter. They loved each other fiercely, and knew it.
Before the shooting, Langhofer had gotten a promotion at work and had fallen in love with her boyfriend. She thought they would marry, Marcy Langhofer said. It gives her comfort to know her daughter was happy at the end of her life.
“She just was really living her best life,” she said.
This story was originally published August 5, 2019 at 6:30 PM.
