Adele Castro, 68, was delayed from attending Lunar New Year festivities at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, which may have saved her life
Dancer Adelle Castro, 68, of Temple City, left, hugs a woman Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023, at the memorial for the victims of the Monterey Park mass shooting at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, where 11 of her friends were killed. “They were my family for 30 years. I traveled with them. I did tai chi with them,” said Castro, who also said they taught her the Taiwanese Tango.
However, a friend’s anniversary dinner Saturday night, Jan. 21, in Monrovia had delayed her. When the meal wrapped up, Castro hopped in her car and drove straight to the ballroom, but was blocked from entering the parking lot by an armada of law enforcement vehicles. She was about to walk into church when her phone began to blow up with texts from some of the ballroom’s regulars who managed to survive the carnage. “I am fine. Thank you,” Lloyd Cok, a Star Dance patron, said in one of the texts. “But my old friend was killed.”
As dusk began to fall, she stood at the memorial site staring at the photos of her dead friends perched on easels surrounded by bouquets of roses and flickering candles, still not fully comprehending that they are gone.
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