LAS VEGAS • The authorities have barely begun identifying all of those who died in Sunday's senseless shooting, but relatives, colleagues and friends have started to share memories of some of them.

Here are some of their stories:

•Mr Adrian Murfitt, 35, had been working 16-hour days all year as a commercial salmon fisherman in his home state of Alaska and it was time for a break. So he gathered two of his childhood friends and booked tickets for the country music festival, said his sister Shannon Gothard. She said her family pieced together his last minutes from his friend Brian MacKinnon, who was with him at the concert on Sunday. "He was just having a good time, enjoying himself and got shot in the neck," she said of her brother. Mr MacKinnon watched as medics tried to resuscitate Mr Murfitt, though the medics told him to leave for his own safety. "Sadly, he died in my arms," Mr MacKinnon wrote on Facebook. "I don't really know what else to say at this time. I'm really sorry."

•Mr Sonny Melton, 29, was with his wife of one year, Mrs Heather Gulish Melton, when they heard gunshots. He grabbed her and began to run. "I felt him get shot in the back," Mrs Gulish Melton told the WCYB TV station. "I want everyone to know what a kind-hearted, loving man he was, but at this point, I can barely breathe." Mr Melton was a registered nurse who worked for much of last year in the surgical unit at Jackson-Madison County General Hospital in Jackson, Tennessee. "He was a very kind, compassionate, genuine person who lived life to the fullest, and he took great care of our patients," said hospital spokesman Amy Garner.

•Mrs Lisa Romero-Muniz of Gallup, New Mexico, was a discipline secretary at Miyamura High School. Her husband Chris had forgotten their wedding anniversary last year and wanted to make it up to her this year. So he planned a four-day weekend in Las Vegas and bought tickets to see her favourite country singer, Jason Aldean. She was killed shortly after he began singing. Ms Louise Leslie said her 14-year-old great-granddaughter found out in class on Monday that Mrs Romero-Muniz was dead and told her "everyone was crying". Ms Leslie said: "She was always telling my granddaughter to stay out of trouble and get somewhere and do the right thing - she was a good friend of hers."

WASHINGTON POST