Memorial for Hartford Distributors workplace shooting victims

Manchester, Conn. (WTNH) - A garden with 8 stainless steel columns; that's the plan for the memorial to the 8 men killed in Connecticut's worst ever workplace shooting. But designers say this is not a cemetery and those will not look like headstones.

"In the very top there's going to be a removable plate so the families, on August third, can place items in a so-called time capsule and then that will be sealed off," said Rick Lawrence, architect of the memorial.

August 3rd will be the one year anniversary of the day truck driver Omar Thornton was called into work at Hartford Distributors. His bosses confronted him with the videotape of him stealing beer from his delivery truck. As he was being escorted out, he pulled out two handguns and started firing.

Thornton killed 8 men before killing himself.

Killed in the shooting were William Ackerman, Bryan Cirigliano, Francis Fazion, Jr., Louis Felder, Jr., Victor James, Edwin Kennison, Jr., Craig Pepin, and Doug Scrutin.

The memorial plans unveiled today will treat each man as an individual, but then the monuments will be literally tied together with a threaded steel cable.

The Rotary Club of Manchester is doing the work to create the memorial. The company owners and the victims' families were not on hand and that was the idea -- to spare them further heartache.

"The families have not been tremendously involved in this day to day and we wanted to keep it that way," Paramedic Dave Skoczulek said. "We wanted the families to relay to us what was important to them, how they wanted it to appear in the memorial."

Even though they're getting a lot of stuff donated, the memorial will still cost upwards of $50,000, so they need to raise funds. There's a fund raiser scheduled for this Saturday at Manchester Community College. If you're interested please visit http://www.hdimemorial.com/