By Rich Schapiro and Sakshi Venkatraman - NBC News
When Brian Aniki walked into a gym at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst for his first taekwondo workout, he noticed something special about the older student leading him.
"He was six feet (1.80 meters) tall and looked calm and collected — an absolutely stoic leader," Aniki recalls. "I thought, 'This is a guy I can learn from.'"
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Aniki wasn't the only one who was impressed by team leader Kyu Cho, who became a great friend and mentor. Cho was wise and educated beyond his age, a martial arts expert who also excelled in classrooms, according to several friends and former team members.
After college, Cho studied law, married, and returned to his native Texas, where he and his wife, Cindy Cho, had two sons: William, now 6, and James, who would turn 3.
Aniki still remembers the excitement in Cho's voice when he described William's early milestones when old college friends met again a few years ago.
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"He loved being a father," Aniki said.
William no longer has his father. Nor his mother. Nor his little brother.
All three died over the weekend in the mass shooting at the Allen Premium Outlets in Allen, Texas, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Dallas. William was wounded in the attack, which claimed the lives of eight people before the heavily armed gunman was killed.
The killing of the couple and their youngest son has sparked a groundswell of grief in the religious community near Dallas, where they lived, and across the country.
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A page on the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe set up for William had raised nearly $1.5 million by Tuesday afternoon.
Cho's wife, Cindy, was a dentist and graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio School of Dentistry in 2013. He worked at Thrive Dental and Orthodontics in Richardson. He was 35 years old.
"Our entire team loved her very much, and we are absolutely heartbroken," the company said in a Facebook post that also described her as "the sweetest and most beautiful soul with the kindest heart."
"She was an excellent dentist, mother, wife, daughter, friend and faithful woman of God," the company said.
Kyu Cho at a friend's wedding in 2013.Courtesy of Brian Aniki
Cho earned a bachelor's degree in political science from UMass-Amherst in 2007, according to a school spokesman. He studied law at Ave Maria College of Law in Naples, Florida, and graduated in 2010.
At the time of his death, Cho, 37, was working at the law firm Porter Legal Group in Richardson. He represented clients in multiple areas of law, but what he was most passionate about were immigration cases, according to the firm.
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"Although Kyu had only been with our firm for a year, we quickly realized that he was one of the most caring, caring and considerate people we have ever had the pleasure of meeting and working with," Porter Legal said on its Facebook page.
Three days after the murder, Cho's college friends were still struggling with a mixture of shock and rage.
"I may have joined a sorority to feel the friendship of a family, but looking back, I had a lot of that with my taekwondo team, and a lot of that was thanks to Kyu," Lauren Anders Brown wrote in a personal article.
"He was the kind of friend you couldn't see for 16 years, but if you met him on the street you picked him up right where you left off," she wrote. "I'll never know what it's like to run into Kyu on the street, because a hateful person and an automatic weapon made it impossible last weekend."
Kyu Cho, right, led Brian Aniki, center, and the other members of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst taekwondo club team in the mid-2000s.Courtesy Brian Aniki
Ray Mak Hon Kit, a close friend who also met Kyu in college, recalls Cho getting down to business when he fell ill with the flu one day.
"Kyu took me to dinner and told me that with some Korean food I would feel better," Hon Kit said. "He introduced me to a Korean dish called Sundubu Jjigae, which means tofu stew. I recovered the next day," he recalled.
Hon Kit was traveling in South Korea in the days leading up to the shooting and updating Cho by text message. So the exchange ended abruptly.
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"I told him I was in his country. He told me to have a great time, to enjoy myself and to eat a lot of good food," she said. "I told him that I am in a place quite far from the center of Seoul and that there is nothing there. Our conversation ended there," he said.
The morning after the shooting, Hon Kit's phone was filled with messages from his former taekwondo buddies mourning the loss of their friend.
"Really devastated. I cried on the subway," she said.
Another college friend, Robert Luckhardt, said Cho was a much more mature natural leader than most people his age. He also had an infectious energy, according to Luckhardt.
"I don't think I ever saw him without smiling," Luckhardt added. "He had infinite positivity, and I always felt like he put others before himself," he recalled.
Grace Ghang, 38, studied law with Cho at Ave Maria Law School, where they were only a few Asians.
"Sometimes we talked and joked in Korean, and as soon as we were introduced there was an instant connection," he explained.
The couple kept in touch after graduating. The last time they spoke, at the end of 2021, they talked about meeting their children to play as soon as they could.
"We concluded our messages by saying that we would love to meet at some point, since we both live now in Texas, and I was really planning to try to take a trip sometime to Dallas to try and catch up with him," she said. "But now that opportunity has been lost," he added.