‘We will miss Kurt beyond words’
Kurt Cochran was walking across Westminster Bridge with his wife, Melissa, on the last day of a trip to Europe when the car being driven by Khalid Masood struck him.
The 54-year-old American musician from West Bountiful, Utah, is believed to have fallen from the bridge on to the concrete steps beneath. He died from his injuries. His wife was also thrown to the ground by the impact and was pictured lying on the road being tended to by passersby.
On Thursday, Melissa Payne Cochran, 46, remained in hospital in London, suffering from a broken leg, rib and head wounds. The couple’s family said they were the first to be hit when Masood accelerated his vehicle across the bridge towards Parliament Square, mounting the pavement and ploughing into crowds of tourists and Londoners going about their daily life.
Cochran’s death was announced by his family on social media. Relatives described him as someone who was generous, adventurous and above all a lover of music, who picked up his first guitar at the age of seven.
“With a heavy heart I must pass the sad news of our beautiful brother, father, husband, son and friend Kurt Cochran,” said his sister-in-law Shantell Payne.
“This pain is so heart-wrenching and raw it has rocked our family and all that knew him to its core. We will miss Kurt beyond words. We love you Kurt. RIP.”
Cochran and his wife had been touring Europe to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. They had travelled to Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland and Scotland, posting pictures for their friends back home to see. London was their last stop and they were visiting Melissa’s parents, who are Mormon missionaries at the Church Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the capital. They had been due to fly home on Thursday.
Clive Payne, Cochran’s father-in-law, released a statement through the church. “Kurt was a good man and a loving husband to our daughter and sister, Melissa,” it read. “They were scheduled to return to the United States on Thursday.”
The family launched a Just Giving page to help Melissa – who like her husband was self-employed. They said that the couple had built their recording studio “from the ground up over the last 10 years” often donating their time and studio to local schools and other worthy causes.
“Melissa needs funds to help cover her regular monthly expenses and loss of income,” the family said. “This fund is administered by her brother, who is the family spokesman in this tragedy. He will deliver the funds to her.”
Cochran and his wife were well known in their home town in Utah. Ten years ago, he fulfilled a dream by setting up a recording studio in his house, known as the Onion Street studio. He told a local newspaper in 2014 how he and his friend had set up a band when they were younger. “We played for a few years, played a few gigs and then decided that instead of a half-assed band we would build a kick-ass studio.
“Rather than renting or leasing a place, we decided to remodel our home to create a state of the art studio that would rival the big dogs. We took out a loan, gutted the basement and started soundproofing.”
Cochran, who was hailed in death as a “great American” by Donald Trump, had grown up in Maryland and lived in Texas before moving to Salt Lake City, the state capital of Utah. He put his love of music down to his parents. “Mom loved jazz and dad loved country. Music was very prevalent in my early years,” he told the newspaper. His first guitar was in his hands at the age of seven and by 10 he was recording music on a handheld tape recorder.
Nate Kizerian, a longtime friend, said Cochran was a vital member of the local music scene.
“He’s just an amazing person,” he said by phone on Thursday. “He brought these musicians from all over the place together.”
Cochran was passionate about his studio and family, Kizerian said. “He lived his dream. He did everything he wanted to do … The two things that made him light up was talking about music and talking about his wife.”
Steve Hatch, a 46-year-old musician, said he was in the process of recording an album at Cochran’s studio and only had four songs left that they planned to finish when he returned from his trip.
“I’m just devastated. He was such a great guy,” Hatch said. “I’m going to cherish what I got recorded with him and put it out there and hopefully he’ll be smiling down on me.”
Cochran was modest and would have been shy about all the attention he was receiving, Hatch said. “He is the person who would just wish the whole world would get along ... For somebody like that to be a victim, how random is that?”
Sean Wentland, another friend from the music scene, said it seemed clear that Cochran made the most of his time.
“He was the kind of person who was getting everything he wanted from life,” he said. “He’s the kind of guy who would do anything he could do for anybody else. He’s the last person in the world you would think that would happen to.”
‘She was just such a lovely person’
Aysha Frade, 43, a mother of two who worked at a sixth-form college in London, had left work and was walking over the bridge to pick up her daughters from school when she was killed in the attack.
Frade, a British national, had lived in Britain for many years and had close family in the Spanish town of Betanzos, in Galicia. On Thursday, her sisters Sylvia and Michelle flew to London to be with her husband and children.
Ramon Garcia Vázquez, the mayor of Betanzos, said many people in the small town knew her and Frade spent every summer there with her children.
Betanzos town hall held a minute’s silence for the family at noon on Thursday and Vázquez announced three days of mourning, cancelling all official activities in the town.
Vázquez confirmed Frade’s death, saying he had been informed early on Thursday morning. “The rumours that started going round last night are sadly true,” he said.
“I didn’t know her, but she has two sisters who run an English school here and other relatives in the area. It’s a tragedy … there are people here in the town hall who knew her and her family and they’re deeply affected.”
In London, where Frade lived with her family, neighbours and colleagues described her as a wonderful mother and a lovely person.
Rachel Borland, principal of DLD college, where Frade worked – a few hundred metres from the bridge – said she was highly regarded and loved. “We are all deeply shocked and saddened ... All our thoughts and our deepest sympathies are with her family,” he said.
Patricia Scotland, one of Frade’s former neighbours in Notting Hill, west London, said: “She was just such a lovely person, with two lovely, lovely girls.”
John Frade, a relative of her husband’s, told the London Evening Standard: “Aysha was my cousin’s wife and when I heard I was just absolutely shocked. I’m still just feeling terrible, it’s a terrible thing to happen and you just don’t expect it to happen so close to home in this way.”
‘They had come to celebrate his birthday’
A Romanian tourist who was in London to celebrate her boyfriend’s birthday was pulled from the river by a passenger boat after falling into the Thames during the attack.
Andreea Cristea, a 29-year-old architect, was knocked into the Thames as Masood drove towards Parliament Square.
She was plucked to safety when the crew on a passing boat saw her floating downstream.
Staff on the Milennium Diamond used a boat hook to grab her clothing. She was then picked up by a rescue boat and treated by paramedics.
Kyle Haughton, managing director at the firm, said: “City Cruises’ Millennium Diamond was in the area of the incident at the time and worked alongside London’s emergency services to support in the rescue efforts of a woman in the water.
“Once alerted by people on the bridge, the ship’s captain reacted fast on spotting her. He halted the boat in order to hold her out of the water and stop her from being carried any further by the current. The emergency services were called immediately and arrived within minutes to take over the rescue operation.”
Her partner, Andrei Burnaz, suffered minor injuries. Dan Mihalache, Romania’s ambassador to the UK, told Romanian media that Cristea sustained serious head injuries and had badly damaged lungs.
Mihalache said: “They were tourists. Unfortunately they were unlucky. They had come to celebrate his birthday.”
The others injured
Victims of the attack came from 11 different countries. They included four tourists from South Korea, a Greek couple, a German, a Pole, an Irish citizen and an Italian.
Twelve Britons were also injured in the terror atrocity.
The Greek embassy said a Greek couple sustained minor injuries and had been able to make their own way to hospital for treatment.
The Italian ambassador said an Italian tourist who was injured when she was hit by Masood’s car was recovering from her injuries. Pasquale Terracciano said he had visited the woman and she told him she had lost consciousness for about 10 minutes after being struck by the car’s bumper.
Three police officers who were injured as they walked from a commendation cermemony were also among the victims. Two were seriously injured, one with head injuries.
A spokeswoman for King’s College hospital said doctors were still treating eight patients on Thursday. Two were in a critical condition and six were stable.