Christina Grimmie Remembered for Faith, Humility During Candlelight Vigil

A South Jersey community honored one of its own who was taken too soon on Monday night.

Evesham Township is a close knit community with the motto “community first,” Mayor Randy Brown said Monday night.

The township showed just how appropriate that motto is when hundreds of people came out to remember Evesham Township native Christina Grimmie, who was shot and killed over the weekend in Orlando, during a candlelight vigil at the municipal complex.

The fact that she competed on NBC’s "The Voice" in 2014 was nearly an afterthought as her friends and family recalled a shy girl whose top priorities in her life included her faith.

“She was a devoted Christian,” childhood friend Pete Innaurato said. “ … She stressed the importance of believing in God to me. It had a big influence on me.”

Dressed in white t-shirts that read “Christina Grimmie 3/12/94-6/10/16” on the front and “Team Grimmie Forever” on the back, friends recalled her telling them, “Heaven is our home and we’re just pilgrims passing through.”

Pastor David Corter, of Bethel Baptist Church in Cherry Hill, recalled the first time Grimmie sang in church.

“She was going to sing Mandy Moore’s ‘Only Hope,’ but she got embarrassed and ran off,” Corter said. “We weren’t sure she was going to come back. When she came back, she opened her mouth to sing, and everyone was amazed.”

This was a theme throughout her life.

Even after she became a YouTube sensation for her renditions of popular songs, she remained humble.

She moved to Los Angeles in 2012, and returned to Evesham to perform a free concert for the Fourth of July shortly after she appeared on “The Voice.”

On her way to the show, she told Brown she was nervous, he said Monday night.

“She never treated her any differently,” her cousin Nick Gargano said. “She was never a pop star. She was always our cousin. She worked hard, she loved what she did. She deserved more.”

Grimmie was shot and killed by 27-year-old Kevin James Loibl, of St. Petersburg, Florida while she signed autographs after a show at Orlando's Plaza Live theater Friday night. She was pronounced dead early Saturday morning.

Police don't know how he was able to get into the nightclub. He was carrying two small caliber handguns, extra rounds of ammunition and a hunting knife.

Police believe Loibl was a deranged fan, and that he acted alone, but still hadn’t established a motive as of Monday night.

About 120 people were in attendance at the concert, and there were "multiple witnesses" to the shooting, according to police.

Grimmie’s brother Marcus tackled Loibl, and has been hailed as a hero by police for "preventing the further loss of life.”

“It took a lot of courage to do what Mark did, and only he knows what was in his mind at that time,” Brown said in introducing Marcus Grimmie during Monday night’s vigil.

“Christie was awesome,” Marcus Grimmie said. “She loved this town, she loved singing, she loved the Lord and she loved me.”

He also took a moment to remember the victims of the following day’s mass shooting that left 50 people dead at a gay nightclub about four miles from where his sister was shot.

“Those people didn’t have all this,” Marcus Grimmie said.

He spoke of Adam Levine, the Maroon 5 star who coached Grimmie when she was on “The Voice,” and his offer to pay for his sister’s funeral.

"I found out this morning, that Adam Levine personally called my mother and said he will pay for the funeral and her plane flight, and I was blown away," Grimmie announced via Facebook earlier in the day.

"We were worried about how we were going to pay for everything," Gargano said. "He really stepped up."

The "Support the Grimmie Family" gofundme page had raised about $140,000 as of Monday night.