San Diego

Vigil Held for Navy Corpsman Gunned Down at Her Apartment Complex

Friends and family gathered Sunday to remember a young Navy Corpsman who was killed at her Oceanside apartment complex Friday.

Devon Rideout, 24, was shot and killed shortly before 4 a.m. Friday. Her upstairs neighbor, Eduardo Arriola, 25, was arrested on suspicion of her murder.

Sunday night, Rideout's aunt and uncle looked back on their favorite memories with their niece.

"When I brought her out here to find the apartment," Paulette Gibson, Rideout's aunt, said. "I came out here to help her find one and this is what we found."

Apartment hunting with Rideout was one of Gibson's favorite memories of her niece. Less than one year later, that same apartment now stands as the place for Rideout's vigil. 

No words can describe the pain in their hearts.

"Just numb, just feel really numb," Gibson said. "She just ... she just loved life."

As soon as she got the devastating news from Rideout's mother, Gibson and her husband started driving up to the apartment.

As they try to hold it together, they slowly start to realize the new reality that their niece will no longer be in their lives.

"She never let anything define who she was and she kept going forward, always," Jerry Gibson, Rideout's uncle said. "But it helps us to appreciate that. It doesn't matter our circumstances, we can make something positive from it or we chose our reaction to situations. That doesn't define who we are."

They are now trying to follow in her footsteps and do what Rideout would have done.

"Just look at her picture," Paulette Gibson said. "There's not a lot of guessing β€”beautiful person outside and exact same in, which is rare. It's usually one or the other, but she was both.

Rideout was studying to become a therapist for those injured in combat, struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder.

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