Slain Huntington Beach Clerk Recalled as Trying to Rise Above Tragedy, Illness

About 100 relatives and friends gathered Thursday to remember Shawna Wolfgram, the 19-year-old Huntington Beach store clerk who was killed last week during a robbery.

They recalled her as a strong-willed young woman who was trying to redirect her life after suffering tragedy and illness.

Also on Thursday, police released a sketch of the man wanted in her slaying. He is described as white, between 40 and 50, with graying hair and a mustache. He is about 6 feet tall and 150 to 170 pounds. A $25,000 reward has been offered.

Police told her uncle Mike Strong that Wolfgram thought the man who entered the busy 99 Cents Only store on Beach Boulevard about 6:20 p.m. Jan. 29 was kidding when he asked for money.

“She told him, ‘No, I can’t do that,’ ” Strong said.

Wolfgram chuckled, thinking it was a joke, he said.

“That’s how she was, always joking,” Strong said. “She’s just innocent, so of course she’s going to do that.”

When the man repeated himself, Wolfgram screamed for help over the store’s intercom, family members said. The man shot her at close range, then ran north on Beach Boulevard with the cash.

“What kind of threat could she have been to him?” Strong said, holding back tears. “It was cold-blooded murder.”

At the service at Good Shepherd Cemetery in Huntington Beach, those assembled remembered her as a tough, argumentative teen who got into trouble for staying out late.

“In her youth, she did what she wanted to do. She went where she wanted to go,” said the Rev. Robert Jabro. “And now she’s going home to eternity.”

Family and friends said the Westminster native was trying to get her life back together after her 2-month-old daughter, Cameron, died in May 2002 of viral meningoencephalitis. She was also adjusting to daily insulin shots for the diabetes she had contracted during pregnancy.

Wolfgram began working at the store in November -- her first job -- and bought a purse with her first paycheck. She had plans to finish high school, become a nurse and get married.

She and fiance Ray Edwards rode bikes together to work; he would return at night in a car to pick up Wolfgram and her bike.

At the funeral, which was paid for by the retail chain, there were collages of photos of Wolfgram taken with her daughter, her cat, Tigger, and her horse.

Her mother, Yvonne Wolfgram, released a dove and blew a kiss into the air. Then a flock of 50 flew into the sky. A guitarist played as children, teens and adults cried while looking at her small, silver casket adorned with pink and purple roses.

“My mind’s been doing circles,” Edwards said. “I miss her a lot.”