YOUNGSTOWN — “I was 14 years old when my stepfather shot and killed my mother, and I held her hand while she died,” Mamie Rudoloph told about 100 people inside the Boys and Girls Club on Oakhill Avenue this afternoon.

She was one of four family members of homicide victims who spoke during the “Stop the Violence” rally sponsored by the group Youngstown United As One.

“I was in the ninth grade at Wilson High School, she said of that day in 1988 on Verona Avenue on the East Side. “They argued all day, and then they got into an argument later on at night,” she continued. Mamie and her brother were playing Nintendo in another room.

“Then my mother said, ‘Just let me sit down. I’ll be OK.'” Her stepfather went upstairs and got a gun.

“We heard a gunshot and I heard her whimper. And he came in and leaned up against the door jam and he said ‘Pretty lady, I’m sorry.'” Then he told her brother to call an ambulance.

“And I went in there, and I was holding my mother’s hand,” she said from a microphone. “I just felt like I was just sitting there watching my mother’s life roll away. And there was nothing I could do about it,” she said, tears streaming down her face.

Read more from Rudolph and others who spoke on Saturday in Sunday’s Vindicator.