July 25, 1960 – December 14, 2012

“You don’t expect your daughter to be murdered,” her father told the newspaper. “It happens on TV. It happens elsewhere.” Anne Marie, the daughter of Dr. Hugh and Alice McGowan of Katonah, was born in Mount Kisco, New York. She graduated from St. Mary’s School in Katonah, John F. Kennedy High School in Somers, New York and Southern Connecticut State University with an MS degree in Education. The Newtown Board of Education hired Anne as a Teacher at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. [1]

According to Hugh and Alice McGowan, their daughter Anne Marie Murphy was happy, artistic, fun-loving, witty, hard-working, a good mother, wife and daughter. Following news of the shooting, Hugh and Alice waited for word of their daughter. Then it came. “Authorities told the couple their daughter was a hero who helped shield some of her students from the rain of bullets. As the grim news arrived, the victim’s mother reached for her rosary.” [2]

Anne Marie’s husband Michael eulogized her as a “mother for whom her children, Colleen, Kelly, Paige and Thomas, were ‘the four pillars of her life.’” The Reverend William T. Holt, a Dominican priest at Holy Innocents Parish in nearby Pleasantville, said that Michael Murphy indicated that Anne Marie had prepared gifts for each child in her in her classroom…. [3] She ultimately gave her life in an attempt to save their lives.

Anne Marie’s father, Dr. Hugh McGowan, a retired dentist formerly had his office “up the road from the church.” He told The Hartford Courant “that the authorities had informed him that his daughter’s body was found covering a group of children’s bodies, as if she were trying to shield them.” Anne Marie’s “actions were corroborated by the family of Dylan Hockley, which released a statement saying, ‘Dylan had died in the loving arms of his favorite teacher.’” [4]

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan conducted the funeral Mass on Thursday in Westchester County for Anne Marie Murphy, a special education aide. Credit Librado Romero/The New York Times

Although Mrs. Murphy had lived in Newtown for the last fourteen years, the church in Katonah, about thirty miles away, was where she married her husband, almost thirty years ago, and was down the road from her family’s home.

Anne Marie Murphy’s casket was lifted into St. Mary of the Assumption Church in Katonah. The arrangements were made by the Honan Funeral Home

🖥 Sandy Hook Elementary School Memorial “A Bend In The River”

President Barack Obama presents a 2012 Citizens Medal to the family of slain Sandy Hook Elementary School teacher Anne Marie Murphy. (Photo by Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)

A groundbreaking ceremony for the first playground in Sea Bright, New Jersey honors the special education teacher Anne Marie Murphy.

[1] Anne Marie Murphy, News Times, http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/newstimes/obituary.aspx?pid=161791026; retrieved 1/4/2018

[2] The Newtown Shooting Victims: Who They Were, https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/The-Newtown-Shooting-Victims-Who-They-Were-183658461.html; retrieved 12/13/2017

[3] Joseph Berger, Cardinal Finds a Biblical Parallel in a School Aide’s Selfless Life and Death, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/21/nyregion/newtown-conn-school-aide-is-remembered-for-her-devotion.html; retrieved 1/4/2018

[4] Joseph Berger, Cardinal Finds a Biblical Parallel in a School Aide’s Selfless Life and Death, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/21/nyregion/newtown-conn-school-aide-is-remembered-for-her-devotion.html; retrieved 1/4/2018