BAILEY, Colo. -- The day after a dramatic school standoff ended in the death of a student hostage, a Colorado community is reeling from the reality of what happened, mourning the young girl who was killed and wanting to know more about the gunman -- identified as Duane Morrison -- and why he targeted the school.

Many were asking questions, "Why here?" "Why us?" "How could it happen?"

The bucolic town of Bailey, Colo., about 40 miles southwest Denver and 30 miles from Columbine High School where the worst school massacre in U.S. history occurred, is the scene of the latest school shooting tragedy.

One of six female students at Platte Canyon High School who was held hostage died after she was shot in the back of the head by the gunman as the SWAT team moved in to end the four-hour standoff on Wednesday afternoon.

Emily Keyes, a 16-year-old junior, was shot as she was trying to flee, authorities said. Keyes died at St. Anthony Central Hospital in Denver after she was airlifted from the school.

Her last text message to her parents, sent 90 minutes before she was killed, read, "I Love U guys."

John Keyes, Emily's father, was standing with dozens of other anxious parents, wondering about his daughter's fate when he asked a reporter from the Flume newspaper to help him communicate with his daughter through the cell phones he had just bought for her and her twin brother for their 16th birthdays.

"He just asked everybody if anybody knew how to text message and I said, 'I'd be happy to help,'" said Flume reporter Cate Malek.

"R U O.K.?" his text message asked.

At 1:52 p.m., Emily messaged back: "I Love U guys."

"He then asked me to text, 'Where R U?' And he didn't get a reply back for that one," Malek said.

He and the parents around him held out hope that Emily was too busy being evacuated but then his phone rang again. It was his wife.

"I'm not sure who called her to tell her that Emily was one of the remaining two hostages with the gunman," Malek said. "From where we were, we can hear an explosion and at that point we saw him fall down."

"I love U guys" is now the name of the memorial fund set up in Emily's memory. Click here to learn more about the fund and about the memorial service, scheduled for Saturday at 11 a.m.

The gunman was dead at the scene and his body remained inside the school until early Thursday. It appeared that Morrison shot himself, but SWAT team members also shot at him at the same time.

Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener was joined by other officials in a news conference just outside the school on Thursday morning.

"I've gone from upset to angry," said Wegener, as he began the news conference. "Angry that this man has done this to our children. Angry that this man has done this to our community ... It changed my school. It changed my community. My small county is gone."

A sign in front of a restaurant in the town's downtown area said, "Pray for Emily. Pray for Bailey."

Louis Gonzalez, a spokesman for the Keyes' family asked the public, "In memory of Emily, we would like everybody to go out and do random acts of kindness, random acts of love to your friends or your neighbors or your fellow students because there is no way to make sense of this. It's what Emily would have wanted."

Gov. Bill Owens drove up to Bailey Thursday to meet with the sheriff and some members of the community who had gathered at Platte Canyon Christian Church to support one another.

"It's a time when communities come together as well. And you see the best of people right after you've seen the worst in people ... I have seen a lot of damage and once again, it tells us all, tonight, when you have a chance -- for those of you who have children -- go home and give them an extra hug," Owens said.

Emily grew up in Bailey, a bedroom community of about 5,500 people, and was known and loved by everyone who came in contact with her. Friends described her as a sweet, shy teen with a bubbly personality.

She enjoyed playing volleyball, was on the high school debate team and for the past two years, had a job waiting tables at the Cutthroat Cafe in Bailey.

"It's very sad here. You know, the family lost their daughter but as a community, we lost a child," said Bobbi Sterling, a waitress and cook at Cutthroat Cafe. "We're just sitting here, numb and in shock. We're all just kind of stunned."

"This is a very small community. This has affected everybody who lives here and will for quite some time," Wegener said.

Emily's twin brother, Casey, was away from school on a field trip during the hostage crisis.

Friends said Emily was rethinking her choices for college because she wanted to be near her brother, her closest friend.

Hostage Talks

One of the hostages during Wednesday's ordeal told her family the gunman stormed into class, threw his backpack on a desk, then lined up students and dismissed them one by one -- boys first and heavier girls. Eventually, he told the girls who were left to use their cell phones to call their parents.

"That's how my mom got the call," the 13-year-old sister of the hostage told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Her mother said the family did not want to be identified because it might further traumatize the former hostage.

"She was crying," the girl said of her 15-year-old sister. "My mom couldn't really hear her."

Authorities said the gunman used a human shield whenever he neared the classroom windows, and the sister said it was Emily every time. The young girl said the whole incident was like a bad dream -- until Thursday morning, when her sister climbed onto her bed.

"This morning, I woke up and I never really thought it happened until I heard her crying," she said.

Asked if she would send her daughter back to Platte Canyon High, the hostage's mother said she probably would.

"I heard my daughter say she doesn't want to go in that room because Emily got shot in that room, the gunman got shot in that room," the mother said.

How It Started

The hostage situation began when Morrison walked into the school at about 11:40 a.m. Wednesday, said he had a bomb in a backpack and fired several shots inside a classroom. Six female students in a second-floor honors English classroom were taken as hostages as the school went into "code white" and Park County deputies rushed to the scene, evacuating everyone from the building.

Code white is the school code known to teachers that alerts them a gunman is in the school.

Jefferson County SWAT team and bomb team were called in to aid the rural Park County Sheriff's Office. Officers moved into the school and confined the gunman to a single classroom -- a lesson learned from Columbine. Deputies established verbal contact with him minutes into the incident through the door of the classroom. The suspect initially talked to deputies but later spoke only through the hostages, authorities said.

The gunman released four students one by one, negotiating with authorities through them by telling the students he released to tell deputies of his demands.

"Most of the demands strictly were, they wanted us to back off," Wegener said.

The gunman shielded himself with the hostages -- making it hard for the SWAT teams -- and talked only through the teens, either directly -- by having them yell through the door -- or by cell phone.

These sporadic negotiations continued until four hours later, when he set a 4 p.m. deadline, broke off all communication, and kept two students with him, authorities said.

SWAT officers could hear the students screaming inside the classroom, could see the assaults that were occurring and that intensified the situation.

"It was then decided that a tactical solution needed to be done in an effort to save the two hostages that were in the room," Wegener said.

At about 3:40 p.m., the SWAT team deployed flash bang devices to force their way in.

"Officers breached the classroom with explosives. Within seconds, the suspect shot at entering SWAT officers, then shot one of the two female hostages and then shot himself. During the gunfire, SWAT officers pulled an additional hostage from the room and she fled the building on foot," Wegener said.

That hostage in the room was unharmed. She was being interviewed by detectives who are trying to piece together what happened during the last couple of hours -- when there was only three of them in the classroom.

Wegener was emotional as he talked about the tragedy on Wednesday but appeared more steely Thursday morning. Wegener's son is a junior at the high school and was in the building during the standoff. His daughter graduated last spring. The sheriff graduated from the school in 1981.

Platte Canyon High School and Fitsimmons Middle School were closed Thursday and will be closed Friday. Deer Creek Elementary School held classes as planned. School officials will announce later this week when school will reopen during the week of Oct. 2.

Crisis counselors and victims advocates were available at Deer Creek and also at Platte Canyon Community Church in Bailey for all students, staff and family members.

The two schools that are affected are about four miles west of Bailey, which is in Park County. The two schools have an enrollment of about 770 students, with 460 in the high school.