Man who lost wife in El Paso shooting opens her funeral to everyone

A man who lost his wife of 22 years in a mass shooting has invited everyone to come to her funeral.

Antonio Basco's wife Margie Reckard was one of 22 people killed in the Texas city of El Paso on the morning of 3 August.

Mr Basco says he has no other family.

He is hoping members of the public will come to the funeral on Friday to celebrate Margie's life, according to the funeral home handling the service.

Speaking to KFox14 after the shooting, Mr Basco had described his 63-year-old wife as "an angel".

He said: "When I met her she was an angel and she still is.

"I was supposed to be the strong one but I found out I'm the weak one, and she's going to be missed a lot.

"I mean you didn't even have to be there to talk to her, you could just look at how she was, how she acted, how she presented herself - she was an awesome lady.

"You see Margie, more or less, was the brains of the family."

A post on Facebook by the funeral home handling Margie's funeral encouraging those nearby to "show him and his wife some El Paso love" had been shared almost 4000 times.

A CBS correspondent's tweet about Mr Basco's funeral invitation had almost 14,000 likes and 9,800 retweets in just two hours.

Responses to the post were overwhelmingly sympathetic, with those who live too far away posting about how to send flowers to the funeral home or donate money to help Mr Basco pay for the funeral.

The funeral is being held on Friday 16 August at 5pm local time at Perches Funeral Home in El Paso.

ABC-7 reported that the chapel will hold about 200 people and the funeral home director has said he hopes it will be filled for the service.