During an appearance on Saturday's broadcast of "Wake Up America Weekend" on Newsmax TV, State Rep. David Faulkner (R-Mountain Brook) discussed his connection to the late Ella Cook, a Brown University sophomore from Mountain Brook, who was allegedly shot and killed by Claudio Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national and former Brown student.
Valente was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at a storage facility in Salem, N.H., on Thursday.
Faulkner said he was unaware of Cook's politics, as she reportedly had been the vice president of the campus College Republicans club, but spoke highly of her character and intellectual abilities.
"To be honest with you, I did not know anything about Ella's politics," he said. "I did not know she was vice president at Brown of the College Republicans. You know, more what I know about her and what I think, you know, coming from my daughter and her other friends is that, you know, Ella was a quiet person, but yet she had courage. She was strong, even though she was quiet — quiet and really just, you know, insanely smart. And there's just no telling, you know, what this young woman would have achieved in her life. And that's the thing I really knew about her.
Jeff Poor is the editor-in-chief of 1819 News and host of "The Jeff Poor Show," heard Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-noon on Mobile's FM Talk 106.5. To connect or comment, email [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @jeff_poor.
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