July 24, 2007
HeraldTimesOnline.com
Mirohim Saft Gayre, 37
MARCH 11, 1970-JULY 20, 2007
COLBERT, Ga. - Mirohim Saft Gayre, 37, formerly of Ellettsville, was murdered in Wesley Chapel, Florida, on July 20. She had lived in Las Vegas since 1996, and recently had lived in Colbert, Georgia. She was in Florida on business.
Born March 11, 1970, in Washington, Indiana, she was the daughter of Bonnie Saft, who now lives in Colbert. She is also survived by her brother, Orion, his wife, and three children, also of Colbert.
She was married to Tracy Gayre, who took his own life on July 20.
Other survivors are Paul Saft, Jr., an uncle, of Saginaw, Michigan, and Carolyn Saft, an aunt, of Culver, Indiana, and their families. She was preceded in death by her grandparents, Paul and Katie Saft, of Bloomington.
Mirohim ("Mimi") was a 1988 graduate of Edgewood High School, where she was in the marching band, and was a graduate of Indiana State University, where she was a member of Alpha Phi and editor of The Statesman. She was regional director of marketing and public relations for IASIS Healthcare Corporation, with responsibilities for hospitals in Florida, Texas, Louisiana and Nevada. She previously had been at Vermillion County Hospital in Clinton, Indiana, and North Vista Hospital, Las Vegas.
Services will be Saturday at 11 a.m. at the Ellettsville Christian Church. Calling will be Friday, 6-8 p.m. at Deremiah-Frye Mortuary, Greene & Harrell Chapel.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be sent to First Clearing, c/o Comprehensive Financial Consultants, 674 S. College Ave., Bloomington, IN 47403. Funds will be for a scholarship at Indiana State that is being established in Mirohim's memory for a female Edgewood graduate who is enrolled in journalism at ISU.
By Traver Riggins triggins@heraldt.com
HeraldTimesOnline.com
July 24, 2007
Bonnie Saft is having a hard time believing the events surrounding the death of her daughter.
"This is something that you see on TV, and this happens to other people," Saft said. "It doesn't happen to you."
Last Friday, Mirohim Saft Gayre, 37, a 1988 Edgewood High School graduate, was shot and killed by her husband, Tracy Gayre, in a Pasco County, Fla., shopping center, according to police reports.
Mirohim Gayre had moved last January from Las Vegas to outside of Athens, Ga., where her husband had planned to join her.
"Last June, we had an opportunity to put an offer on a bed and breakfast in Athens," Saft said. "(Something) he (Tracy Gayre) convinced the whole family that he wanted to do."
At the time, Mirohim Gayre's entire family - mother, brother and sister-in-law and their three kids, along with her and her husband - were living in Las Vegas, and they all decided to support the bed-and-breakfast idea.
Saft said everyone put their homes up for sale, and by December 2006, the Gayres' house was the only one that hadn't sold.
Mirohim Gayre saw Athens as an opportunity to expand her independent marketing career while maintaining her position with IASIS Healthcare Corp., and decided to move to Athens with her mother, leaving her husband in Las Vegas waiting for their house to sell.
But Gayre's feelings for her husband began to change, and she began seeing Steven Duhamel, who lives in Wesley Chapel, Fla. Saft said her daughter was open to her husband about her feelings. About two weeks ago, she told him she needed some time apart to rationalize parts of her life.
"I don't know how he found out about the other man," her mother said. "He was totally obsessed about going on the Internet and finding out where he worked, where he lived."
Saft had a feeling Tracy Gayre, 41, would follow her daughter. On Thursday night, as Mirohim Gayre arrived at Duhamel's apartment, her husband approached her from behind and said, "Let the party begin," according to her mother, who said Mirohim Gayre called her that night.
"I said 'I knew it. I knew it,' and from that point on, it was nothing but pure chaos," Saft said.
According to news and police reports, Gayre wouldn't let her husband in the apartment, but having a key to her Jaguar, he took the car and later informed her that she could pick it up Friday at a shopping center parking lot. Duhamel took her to the shopping plaza. She found the car and got into it, but her husband pulled up in a rental car, got out and began to wave a gun around. Mirohim Gayre pleaded with her husband and attempted to phone police, but Tracy Gayre shot and killed his wife and fled the scene.
Following a police chase through several counties, Tracy Gayre shot and killed himself in Sumter County after a two-hour standoff with law enforcement, according to police reports.
But the tragic ending of Mirohim Gayre's life does not overshadow the light she left on others.
"Mirohim probably had 100 best friends in this world," Orion Saft said of his sister. "That's just the way that she was."
Her mother was one of those friends. So were her brother and sister-in-law, and 25-year family friend Mark Moore, who lives in Newburgh. The relationship she had with her 12-year-old niece was particularly special.
"She always tried to put herself back at that age," said April Saft, her sister-in-law, who remembers Mirohim Gayre's cackle, which everyone fell in love with and knew her for. "She always tried to put herself in someone else's shoes so that she could relate."
Saft and his sister were exactly a year and two months apart. They shared friends and activities.
"I followed right behind her like a little dog," Orion Saft said. He even followed her to Indiana State University, and when she was editor-in-chief of the campus paper her senior year, her little brother joined as assistant sports editor.
Mirohim Gayre graduated from ISU more than 15 years ago, but Paul Hightower, a professor in the communications department at ISU, still remembers the girl who was never in a bad mood.
"She probably took every class that I teach," Hightower said. "She was very gifted as a graphics person."
Moore, who went to high school with her, remembers her being cliqueless when everyone else was drowned in them.
"We grew up in a pretty small high school," Moore said, "and that can be a good and a bad thing, and in regards to Mirohim - that was a great thing."
She was in charge of organizing high school reunions and keeping people in touch.
"Mirohim was one of those people who was truly friends with everyone," said Jen Perry, of Bloomington, who was in the 1989 class. "She was always smiling, and she had a great, bubbly laugh. She was the heart of her class, back then and after we all left school. ... When my grandfather met someone really special, he used to say that person was 'one of the good ones.' Mirohim was one of the good ones."