That s what the president of the public union representing the slain workers wants the public to know about them.
Robert McFarland, 46, was a corrections officer at the institution and a volunteer firefighter in Ely. Lorena Schulte, 50, was a registered nurse at the prison.
The small-town community of Anamosa feels their loss, says Danny Homan, president of AFSCME, Council 61. Most people know the folks that work inside the prisons, Homan said. They don t have to have a uniform on. They just know them. This is a huge blow to the employees that had to walk back into Anamosa this morning or last night - knowing that there s an area of that prison where two of their co-workers were murdered.