On the morning of August 20, 1986, Patti Lou Ford Welch, a 27-year-old postal clerk in Edmond, Oklahoma, was shot and killed during a workplace attack at the local post office. She had recently married and was working her shift when a part-time letter carrier, Patrick H. Sherrill, entered the building armed with three pistols and opened fire. Patti Welch was one of fourteen people killed in the rampage, which investigators say lasted less than fifteen minutes.

The shooter died at the scene, and no arrests followed. Reports note the attacker had shown troubling behavior before the killings. Patti Welch’s husband and the community were left to cope with the sudden loss. What details about Patti’s life or the victims’ routines that day might help explain how the attack unfolded?