Just two days earlier, Lattin, 77, had tried to stop a gunman who chased one of her employees into the barn, then shot and killed the woman. Lattin and two other employees were setting up shop in the barn Thursday morning when the victim, Kay Langford, burst through the door, already having been shot once.
“He’s after me; he’s going to do it,” Langford told them, according to court papers.
Moments later, Roy Franco, 54, entered carrying a sawed-off shotgun. Lattin grabbed Franco’s arm and shirt in an attempt to give Langford time to run away, but Franco knocked her down and fatally shot Langford.
Lattin said she and her co-workers debated Friday about whether to reopen for Saturday’s apple festival.
She said they decided they couldn’t let people in the community down. One of Lattin’s daughters, Sherrie Kohlmann, said it’s difficult to show customers the smiles they’re accustomed to because of the anguish employees are feeling.
Stan Meyer, a fire commissioner for the nearby Fire District 6 in East Olympia, was one of many who stopped to give Lattin a warm embrace.
“I just love her,” Meyer said. “To put herself in harm’s way is just incredible. I’m just glad she didn’t get hurt, thank God.”
The festival is a South Sound fall tradition.
Every weekend through the end of October, children can take part in hay rides to the Lattins’ pumpkin patch or feed and pet the goats that roam fenced-off areas of the farm.
Even when the apple festival ends, the cider mill remains open for most of the year, a volunteer said.
Kim Acuff, who strolled the grounds Saturday with her husband and their son, said she has been coming to the apple festival for years.
“My oldest is 27, and I know I brought him when he was a baby,” Acuff said. She added that Lattin’s Cider Mill is the only place where she can get huckleberries.
“These really are special people that are running this,” she said. “It’s part of Olympia.”
Inside the barn, people stood in line to buy homemade apple fritters, doughnuts and the Lattins’ award-winning ciders.
A booth with a sign reading “In Loving Memory of Kay” was set up as a memorial for Langford, and people could place money in donation boxes to help support her children.
Langford was beloved by all of the approximately 25 employees of the cider mill, Lattin said. Langford loved to help feed the farm’s animals and enjoyed the camaraderie of her co-workers, Lattin added.
“The last year and a half that she was working here, she had family and she had happiness,” Lattin said.
Franco, who shot himself in the face with his sawed-off shotgun in the parking lot at Lattin’s on Thursday, is charged with first-degree murder while armed with a deadly weapon and first-degree assault.
He was listed in critical condition Saturday at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Thurston County Sheriff’s Sgt. Cheryl Stines said Friday that it appears he will survive.
Jeremy Pawloski: 360-754-5465
jpawloski@theolympian.com
