For Melissa Ott, a producer at WDBJ7, a local TV station in small-town southern Virginia, the day began like any other.
She sat in the station's control room producing the morning news while her fiancé, cameraman Adam Ward, 27, and reporter Alison Parker, 24, hit the road to cover stories.
They were doing a piece on the revitalisation of a local lake before 7am, interviewing Vicki Gardner of the Chamber of Commerce.
It is hard to fathom what must have gone through Ms Ott's mind next as she watched on as gunshots were suddenly fired.
The footage is terrible. When the first shot is fired into Ward, his camera captures a look of true horror on Parker's face. As she flees screaming, seven more shots are heard and the camera, still recording and broadcasting, falls down and to the left.
At this point the station cuts back to the baffled anchor, Kimberly McBroom, who says: "Ok, not sure what happened there, we will of course let you know as soon as we find out what those sounds were from."
Speaking on air on Wednesday evening the station's general manager, Jeff Marks, said those in the control room – including Ms Ott – knew that something terrible had happened.
They were right. Ward and Parker died at the scene. Ms Gardner remains in hospital.
This was to have been Ms Ott's last day at the station. She and Mr Ward were planning to move to Charlotte where she had a new job and he was considering leaving the news business.
According to the Charlotte Observer, Ward had recently said to a local businessman and friend, TJ Eberle: "I'm a little burned out in this job, going to film people's worse days, whether it be a fire or crime scene."
Mr Marks said Parker's life was about to change too.
She had recently started a relationship with the station's evening news anchor Chris Hurst.
They had plans to move in together so they could save for a ring.
#WDBJ: News anchor @chrishurstwdbj mourns the loss of his reporter girlfriend Alison Parker. http://t.co/j7taPXVOqs pic.twitter.com/1EcqVUIGPa— Fox News (@FoxNews)
August 26, 2015
Given the nature of the killing many of those who saw it knew the victims.
During a press conference a few hours after the killings, the local sheriff Bill Overton said he had done a live cross with Parker and Ward just three weeks earlier.
He had been watching them on TV as they were shot.
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