Source: WFMZ Channel 69 TV

She was a hard-working mother of three. Now, her family is working hard to cope with an unimaginable tragedy. The drive-thru is open again at the McDonald's at Ninth and Spring streets in Reading, but it's hardly business as usual. Police are still looking for whoever pulled up to the drive-thru window early Tuesday morning, and shot 40-year-old Shawnee Koch. An autopsy this afternoon confirmed that she died of a gunshot wound to the head. Now police are looking for the shooter, and her family is looking for answers. They're speaking exclusively to 69 News about how their coping with the tragedy. WFMZ's Melissa Batulis has the story.ÊÊWorking third shift as a manager of this McDonald's was one of Shawnee Koch's two jobs. Her family returned here today. And they described the visit as stabbing pain. While they try to make sense of this tragedy, they are holding on to memories... including their last day with their mother and friend.

>> BRANDON: "It was just a perfect day."

>> REPORTER: That's how 17-year-old Brandon Koch describes the day before his mother was killed. He and his wife were awakened when Shawnee Koch came home from work.

>> BRANDON: "Once she got out of the shower we actually just sat and talked and I let her get an hour or so of sleep. We came in and woke her up because she was going to get a tattoo."

>> ALLISON: "She was just so happy. She was so excited with the baby."

>> REPORTER: Shawnee Koch was a mother of three and expecting her first grandchild in September. But Tuesday would be the last day she would spend with her family. The next morning Brandon and Allison were jolted from their sleep by the sound of a friend's voice through a Nextel phone.

>> BRANDON: "He started yelling into it and my wife heard it and actually got up and went in the other room and was like what's going on?" "The only thing I heard out of that whole thing was Shawnee and blood."

>> ALLISON: "It's not what you want to think as a joke, but I was like, it's not real, you know."

>> REPORTER: And the Koch family is still trying to wrap their heads around how something like this could happen to someone like Shawnee.

>> BRANDON: "She did nothing but work two jobs and give all that she could to everyone."

>> ALLISON: "She always made everybody happy. That kind of seemed like her point to make everybody happy."

>> REPORTER: For now, the young couple says they're just going through the motions and missing the woman they both called mom.

>> BRANDON: "Maybe after all this is done, I'll eventually break down, but just for right now I have to be strong. I can't turn around and cry on my mom's shoulder anymore." Melissa Batulis

>> The funeral for Shawnee Koch will be held Tuesday at the Kuhn Funeral Home in West Reading. Live in Reading, Melissa Batulis, 69 News Berks Edition.

Added: July 26, 2007