Residents of Newtown cope with loss

NEWTOWN, Conn. (WWLP) - Collective heartbreak across the country as details of the final moments of the victims emerge.

Even without words, the grief over the loss of so many lives at Sandy Hook Elementary School is loud and clear.

It's as bad as it gets.

At the St. Rose Church in Newtown, there is an unbearable sense of loss.

"You know, you just picture in your head how could that have happened,” said Newtown resident Jack Read. “I mean how could someone do that to somebody as innocent and defenseless as kindergarteners?"

Rudy Magin said, "You go to Mass on Sunday; the whole families are here. Some of those kids were probably at the 10:30 mass that I go to, and they're not here anymore."

And many people are showing their support in many different ways and in this entire region there are memorials popping up everywhere and growing by the minute.

A Newtown resident told 22News, "I just went out and bought 26 candles, and I was thinking of putting some out here and it's like, what can I do for the  families?"

A sense of innocence lost.

"This town will never be the same."

And here and across the globe, hearts are broken.

"The people that we're talking to have had their hearts torn out,” said Deacon Dan O’Connor of Newtown’s St. Rose Parish. “Whether they're here, or feeling the loss of every parent who fear that something could happen to their children. And it's not that it's Newtown, it's not that it's anywhere, it's just that kids have been killed."