Fort Hood Tragedy: A Cruel Twist of Fate

Mary Muntean’s life took an unexpected turn on March 23. The 77-year-old mother of three sons, who lives in Effingham, Ill., traveled to Indianapolis to meet Terry Miller, the daughter she had given up for adoption 54 years ago. “It was the most wonderful thing in the world,” Muntean tells PEOPLE. After the visit Muntean told her middle son, Sgt. Tim Owens, 37, that he had a sister. “He was shocked,” says Muntean’s niece Betty Goodwin, but on March 30 he called his sister. “We had a really good talk, and we got to laugh,” says Miller, who had started looking for her birth mother as an adult. Three days later, in a cruel twist, Muntean – who was watching news of a shooting on the Fort Hood military base – received a shocking phone call that would change her life once again. This time it was from Tim’s wife, Billie. “She said, ‘Mom, I want to tell you how sorry I am. Tim’s gone,’ ” Muntean told reporters. Sergeant Owens had been shot in the chest during the violent shooting that left 16 people injured and 4 dead (see box), including shooter Ivan Lopez, whom Owens tried to calm down, according to reports. “He was an amazing listener,” says Owens’s daughter Loredana, 17. Back home, Muntean struggles with the pain of never seeing her children together. “I’m going through hell,” says Muntean. “You get to know your daughter, and then you lose a son.”