Fiancée of Slain Cameraman Adam Ward Received Wedding Gown Same Day She Watched Him Die

You can't even imagine how traumatic this is. Adam Ward, the WDBJ-TV cameraman who was murdered alongside journalist Alison Parker yesterday, Wednesday, Aug. 26, was engaged to a producer at the station named Melissa Ott, who had to watch his tragic death from the control room after former employee Vester Flanagan allegedly shot and killed him. It has emerged that her wedding dress arrived the same day she watched the shocking on-air shooting. Months earlier, Ward and Melissa Ott had made their own news, announcing their engagement to a crew of happy colleagues in their Virginia newsroom. So smitten was Ward with Melissa that he was following her to Charlotte, N.C., where Ott had taken a new job. It was Melissa’s last day on the job. It turned out to be Ward’s last day on earth, too.

Ward was videotaping reporter Alison Parker’s live interview with a Chamber of Commerce official when a gunman calmly walked up and opened fire on the trio. Parker and Ward died in the early-morning sneak attack, which also wounded Vicki Gardner, but not before Ward, as he lay dying, managed to capture an image of the menacing man who killed him. That image — determined gunman, evil sneer, steady hand — led authorities to quickly identify Vester Lee Flanagan II, a.k.a. Bryce Williams, as a suspect in the brutal execution-style shootings. Flanagan, a former reporter at the station, said in a tweet after the shooting that Ward had complained about him to human resources before he was fired.