The Associated Press
White Hall, Ill. (AP) -- Friends and family mourned the death of a former Illinois Department of Corrections official who was killed earlier this month when the convoy she was riding in came under attack in Kosovo.
About 200 people gathered Sunday at Calvary Baptist Church in this western Illinois city to remember Kim Bigley, the former Shawnee Correctional Center warden.
“Kim Bigley was not large in stature, but great in character,” said Kerry Camp, who worked with her at Shawnee. “That smile. There was just something about that Kim Bigley smile. It will forever be ingrained in my mind.”
Bigley was one 21 U.S. correctional officers who were attacked in Kosovo when a Jordanian officer opened fire on their convoy. The 10-minute shootout that followed killed Bigley, 47, Lynn Williams, 48, of Elmont, N.Y., and the gunman,
Eleven others were also wounded, including Gary Weston, 52, of Vienna, Ill. Weston died Saturday at the St. Louis University Medical Center from his wounds.
Bigley and Weston had worked at the Shawnee Correctional Center together. In Kosovo, they were part of an effort to bring professional corrections expertise into the prisons.
Friends remembered Bigley on Sunday as a caring, compassionate woman who took pride in her job.
“Kim was taken from us in a senseless tragedy,” the Rev. John McCorkle said. “Even though her death was senseless, that certainly does not mean her life was taken in vain. To realize that, all you have to do is look to see what she’s left behind.”
Since the United Nations took control of the province in 1999, the prisons have been supervised by police with little specialized training.
The world body moved into Kosovo after a 78-day NATO air war launched to stop former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s crackdown on independence-minded ethnic Albanians.
Bigley and the other corrections officials arrived in Kosovo April 7 and hadn’t yet begun their jobs.