A tightknit group of friends and family members came to pay their respects to Jennifer Yurie Ah King Markovsky, a 35-year-old, stay-at-home mother who was accompanying a friend to the clinic Nov. 27 when she was killed along with two others by a gunman.

The ceremony was small and subdued compared with for University of Colorado at Colorado Springs police officer and shooting victim Garrett Swasey, which was held earlier in the day just a few miles away.

But the emotions were no less raw or poignant.

The most heart-wrenching moment came just before the service started, when an older woman burst out in anguished sobs as she looked at Markovsky laid out in an open casket.

Father Anthony Karbo of the Holy Theophany Orthodox Church told the congregants that Markovsky had been baptized into the church a few years ago and had taken the name Anastasia, which means “resurrection.”

“Even in death, she looks toward he who is life,” Karbo said.

He said she will be summoned by Christ to once again “rise up, rise up and walk.”

Markovsky’s husband, Paul, and their two young children sat in a front row near the casket.

The when Paul Markovsky was stationed there for military service. Jennifer Markovsky grew up in Hawaii before moving with her husband to Colorado.

A program handed out at the ceremony shows pictures of an active family with a love for the outdoors.

A funeral service will be held for Markovsky on Saturday. She will be buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs.

John Aguilar: 303-954-1695, jaguilar@denverpost.com or @abuvthefold

Minutes after a gunman opened fire at a Planned Parenthood branch in Colorado Springs last week, Chandler began frantically racing to hospitals hoping someone could tell him his brother was still alive.

Then homicide detectives called: Ke’Arre Stewart, the 29-year-old Iraq war veteran and married father of two, was dead.

Stewart hadn’t even made it to an emergency room.

“It was surreal,” Chandler recounted Thursday at a viewing for his brother. “It was like a movie. I was racing in and out of traffic with my hazard lights on, going from hospital to hospital trying to find out what was going on. I’m the man in the family now. He’s gone.”

Dozens gathered at a funeral home on Thursday night to pay tribute to Stewart and remember the 29-year-old’s life. Tearful mourners made their way one-by-one to his casket, draped in an American flag, to pay their last respects and whisper messages of farewell.

“That was my big brother,” Chandler said. “I don’t have that anymore.”

Several people were overcome with emotion as they stepped before Stewart’s casket, their wails echoing in the small chapel as they rushed out in tears.

“He was a hero to me already, and now the community knows that he is a hero,” said Stewart’s mother, Sharon Lloyd.

Family members say they were told by witnesses Stewart was shot outside of the Planned Parenthood clinic and then ran into the building seeking cover and warning others to do the same.

That valor, they say, was just part of his character.

“I don’t want to believe it,” Stewart’s wife, Ashley, said as her eyes hung low. “It’s hard. I keep telling myself I’m going to wake up, but … “

She let the room’s silence finish her phrase.

Stewart served in the military for almost a decade and was awarded several decorations. He was discharged in 2013 after last being stationed at Fort Carson, military records show.

Stewart’s family was initially worried when he joined the Army in the heat of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On Thursday, they struggled to find words to understand the irony of his surviving battle in Iraq only to come home and be killed in a normally quiet city.

Pictures of Stewart in the military, as well as with his daughters and friends, were displayed above the brown coffin. Several retired soldiers came to pay their respects.

Rosalinda Sanchez worked under Stewart last year at a call center in Colorado Springs. She said he was a great supervisor who always was there to listen, generous and amiable to his staff.

“He was soft-spoken,” she said.

Sharon James didn’t know Stewart, but she came to pay her respects and honor his life.

“He was a hero,” said James. “He was a soldier who protected this country. It’s just getting too close to home,” she said of mass shootings.

The Thursday service is the only public remembrance of Stewart in Colorado. The former Army private will be interred at Oakwood Cemetery in Waco, Texas, his hometown.

and 35-year-old mother were also killed in the Nov. 27 attack. The two will be remembered at services on Friday and Saturday in Colorado Springs.

Nine others, include five officers, also were wounded.

At the Planned Parenthood clinic where the shootings unfolded last week, a few investigators remained at the scene on Thursday. A makeshift memorial for the attack’s victims lay on the perimeter hugging the sidewalk as life in the surrounding shopping center returned to normal.

Lloyd said when she last talked to Stewart, her son was craving her famous beans and cornbread. If she could tell him one thing, it would be that she’s ready for him at her table.

“I would definitely tell him, ‘I got that bowl waiting on you, honey,’ ” Lloyd said. “‘Mama be right here waiting on you.'”

Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@denverpost.com or @JesseAPaul

Jennifer Markovsky, a mother of two, “was the most lovable person,” said her father, John Ah-King. “So kindhearted, just always there when I needed her.”

Stewart and Markovsky each accompanied friends to a Planned Parenthood clinic on Friday, and both were killed by a gunman who opened fire on civilians and the police officers who responded to the mayhem.

A third victim, campus police Officer Garrett Swasey, at a tearful church service Sunday.

The man accused in the attack, , faces his first court appearance on Monday through a video advisement. Police officers picked through the crime scene for further evidence into the evening on Sunday, and a memorial at the site continued to grow.

Stewart, 29, graduated from La Vega High School in Texas in 2004 and joined the Army, said friend Amburh Butler. Stewart was stationed at Fort Hood and did one tour in Iraq.

“He moved to Colorado because he was stationed there, but he stayed because he loved it,” said longtime friend Eric Cross Sr.

Butler, also 29, had been friends with Stewart since they were 11 years old. “He was a stand-up guy,” she said. “If you were hungry, he fed you. If you were cold and needed a ride, he was just there. He was a good friend and an amazing listener.”

Cross knew Stewart since the two were in sixth grade.

“He was the only sixth-grader with a goatee,” said Cross, who lives in Texas.

Stewart was a good father and friend, Cross said.

“He loved his daughters to death,” he said. “He would do anything for them.”

Cross described Stewart as a popular man who was known for his athleticism in high school, playing football and basketball and running track.

“He was smart,” Cross said. “He always wanted the best life had to offer for him and those around him.”

Cross spoke to Stewart a week ago, he said.

“Even though he had a lot going on, he was still in good spirits,” he said. “He was someone you could just sit and talk to about life. He will be greatly missed.”

Markovsky, 35, was with a friend at the clinic when she was killed, her father said. She grew up in Hawaii and met her husband, Paul, there. The couple moved to Colorado when he was stationed here for the military.

Family remembered her as a stay-at-home mom who was devoted to her young son and daughter.

Speaking from his home in Hawaii, Ah-King said he from his other daughter who had been contacted by friends.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Ah-King said through sobs. “I just messaged her Thursday to say Happy Thanksgiving.”

Police issued a statement Sunday that said they would not discuss the gunman’s motive, the type of weapon used or a timeline of events. Warrants in the case have been sealed.

Police said it will take six to seven days to process the crime scene. Twelve people — many of them law enforcement officers — were injured in the attack, in addition to the three people killed.

The city’s police and fire departments, along with mental health and emergency response organizations, set up a community crisis center on Sunday afternoon that they plan to keep open for days.

The Mortgage Solutions Financial Expo Center was transformed into aid stations complete with recovery packets, victims rights information and many open ears to hear the grisly experiences of those most closely impacted by the tragedy, including first responders.

“Do not isolate yourself,” Gerald Albrent, disaster response coordinator for Aspen Pointe mental health services, warned the public.

Albrent urged anyone who was affected by the shootings to seek help and talk about what happened.

“What we’re expecting to see, what we are hoping to see, is people who may have some anxiety and feelings of guilt,” said Dan Vaught, a Colorado Springs Fire Department paramedic who heads the agency’s community response team.

Vaught said his role is to keep those affected by the shootings out of crisis.

“It’s a process,” Vaught said. “There’s not anything you can say (to make it better). It’s taking someone, figuratively, by the hand and helping them a step at a time. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as taking medicine or throwing a Band-Aid on it. These wounds can last a very long time, and it requires someone to walk beside you.”

Some 48 hours after the attack ended, the Planned Parenthood clinic remained illuminated by the blue and red flashing lights of police cars Sunday night. Investigators were still scouring the area for evidence as officers stood guard.

Memorials dotted the crime scene perimeter, which was draped in yellow police tape. A candle flickered before a gathering of bouquets encircling a card that read: “In loving memory of Officer Swasey and the two other victims. Rest in paradise.”

Signs hugged light poles reading: “We (heart) Planned Parenthood” and “Keep Planned Parenthood Safe.”

Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@ denverpost.com or twitter.com/JesseAPaul

Staff writers Jennifer Brown, Elizabeth Hernandez, Jordan Steffen and Yesenia Robles contributed to this report.

Putting his life at risk proved those convictions when the 44-year-old was slain Friday while responding to shootings at a Planned Parenthood branch here, those who knew him say.

The police officer at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs has been described as a hero in every sense of the word.

“He may not (have agreed) with the abortion position, but he was willing to lay down his life for other people,” said Scott Dontanville, co-pastor of the evangelical Hope Chapel, where Swasey spent much of his time.

A fuller picture of Swasey emerged Saturday as he was remembered as a loving son, husband and father for whom protecting the public was an honor.

He is survived by his wife, Rachel; 11-year-old son, Elijah; and 6-year-old daughter, Faith.

“He was a devoted father,” Dontanville said. “He was the guy who was home with his kids. I was just over at his house the other night playing with his son in the backyard. He was a great dad.”

Swasey, a six-year veteran of the UCCS police force, was an avid teacher of scripture who played guitar and loved his work in law enforcement. He was an elder at Hope Chapel, a church he began attending in 2001.

“They view the members of the church as their family,” the church’s website says of Swasey and his wife. “Both have been granted a servant’s heart by God, and are a demonstrative evidence of God’s grace to Hope Chapel.”

On Facebook, Swasey’s sister said her family is grieving a loss that “will be forever felt.” Her parents lost their only son, Kimberly Swasey Noveletsky wrote, and the fallen officer’s children lost a father they had only begun to get to know.

“My brother was a hero in every sense of the word,” she said.

“He showed the world what kind of man he was yesterday when he made the ultimate sacrifice. His family already knew what most of you are just finding out.”

Mayor John Suthers said UCCS has been fully supporting Swasey’s family and that the university’s chancellor, Pamela Shockley-Zalabak, has met with the fallen officer’s wife.

“They are being well attended to,” Suthers said.

A vigil at UCCS remembered the officer at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. The school’s men’s and women’s basketball teams also held a moment of silence for Swasey before their games Saturday evening.

President Barack Obama released a statement Saturday praising the slain officer.

“May God bless Officer Garrett Swasey and the Americans he tried to save — and may He grant the rest of us the courage to do the same thing,” Obama said.

Swasey was on duty at UCCS when he responded to the Planned Parenthood shootings about 11:50 a.m. to support Colorado Springs police. He was one of the first to arrive.

Before Swasey became a police officer, he was a junior national couples ice dancing champion.

in Orlando, Fla., in 1992, with partner Christine Fowler-Binder of Baltimore. Fowler-Binder and Swasey, in third place after the compulsory phase of the competition, took the title by winning the original and free dance programs, according to a Baltimore Sun article.

Three years later, Swasey and ice dancing partner Hillary Tompkins competed in the 1995 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Providence, R.I.

The Denver-based ice dancing couple placed 13th at the championships and later performed on Musical on Ice shows at the Forum in Presque Isle, Maine.

Fowler-Binder called Swasey’s death senseless.

“We’re kind of like brother and sister in a way,” Fowler-Binder said Saturday night. “He’s a great guy — very patient with me. I’m more of an A-type personality, and he’s more of a calm guy. He was always there if you needed anything.”

Fowler-Binder learned about the shootings Friday night and began worrying when she learned a police officer in Colorado Springs was wounded.

“I sent him texts, ‘Are you OK? Are you OK?’ ” she said. “I never heard back from him.”

U.S. Figure Skating said Swasey continued to teach skating even as a police officer, spending his days off duty on the ice.

Originally from suburban Boston, Swasey moved to Colorado Springs in the early 1990s to train at the Olympic Training Center, according to a crowdfunding site created to support his family.

Former U.S. National Champion Nancy Kerrigan told Boston television stations that the two skated together at the Stoneham Figure Skating Club when they were children.

“He was passionate about everything. Everything done with a great big smile, and he had fun in life,” Kerrigan told CBSBoston.

Swasey’s mother, Sheila, told The Washington Post she wanted her son to have a career as a skating teacher instead of becoming a police officer.

“It’s what he wanted to do,” she said. “How could you say no?”

Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@denverpost.com or @JesseAPaul