One was a Kansas University senior. One was an electrician. And one was a social worker. Yet all three had one thing in common. Nicole Bingham, Jose Gonzalez and Yolanda Riddle died during the early morning hours of Oct. 7 when a devastating fire engulfed the 76-unit building they lived in at the Boardwalk Apartments in the 500 block of Fireside Drive.

The three victims left behind many family members and friends who were willing to tell the Journal-World about their lives and interests and how they affected those around them. Memorial services were Friday for Riddle and Saturday for Gonzalez. A service for Bingham will be 6 p.m. Tuesday at Lawrence Free Methodist Church, 3001 Lawrence Ave.

Meanwhile, Jason Allen Rose, 20, who lived in the same building, is being held in Douglas County Jail in connection with three counts of first-degree murder and one count of aggravated arson. He was arrested three days after the fire.

Nicole Bingham

Nicole kept a card in her wallet in case of emergency. It had the details of her heart defect. Six years ago she had open heart surgery. And the specter of death still followed her.

Nicole’s heart didn’t fail her. A deadly fire did.

Nicole Bingham, a Kansas University senior, was one of three who died in the Oct. 7 Boardwalk Apartments fire.

KU student Nicole Bingham is pictured at a Royals game with friend Luke Grover. Services for Bingham will be Tuesday.

It took five days for officials to confirm her death, but family and friends knew they’d lost Nicole on the same day they first saw the decimated building.

“I already knew,” Luke Grover, a friend, said. He sat outside his fraternity house on a chilly evening last week. He wore flip-flops and jeans. As the sun faded, he stared at the yard ahead of him and recalled what he could about his best friend.

“It’s always helpful to talk about Nicole,” he said. “She’s never really gone as long as you’re talking about her.”

Grover, a Kansas University senior, should be in classes. He should be working. But he’s spent some of the last few days feeling numb.

Wednesday would have been Nicole’s 22nd birthday. She had planned to go on a pub crawl. Grover didn’t leave his room that day. He lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling.

‘BFF’

Four years ago, they met. Both were freshmen. It was the first day of classes.

“Nice shoes,” she told him in a chance meeting at a bus stop. Their sandals were similar. His, the cheap kind. Hers, a bit fancier.

He was quiet. A newbie to campus. Nicole, from Wichita, was open and friendly. In time, a friendship blossomed.

And they did what college kids do.

Late at night, after an evening out in the old days, Grover would stop at Nicole’s dorm room for Corn Pops.

Nicole Bingham

Or they watched movies. She loved “The Big Chill” and “A League of Their Own.” Grover watched the baseball movie more times than he would like.

Nicole’s heart melted for Big Bird. She slept with a stuffed Big Bird every night and adored the toy so much that one time Grover drove to Wichita to retrieve it after she’d mistakenly left it behind. Grover, like many of Nicole’s friends has had to watch a movie about Big Bird’s adventures.

On down days, they headed to Steak ‘n Shake for cheese fries.

When she started school, Nicole wasn’t sure what she wanted to be. She later became a history major and that seemed to fit. She loved the books “The Most Evil Women in History” and “The Most Evil Men and Women in History.” If she read a juicy part, she’d make Grover read it, too.

Nicole’s heart defect affected her. She could tire easily. She couldn’t overexert herself. There were visits to doctors and the hospital. She lived with the understanding she could die anytime.

Grover liked how Nicole spoke her mind. If she thought Grover looked pudgy, she told him.

“She was pretty much the most honest person I ever met in my life,” he said.

Grover and Nicole dated for a time. But they discovered they made better friends. Best friends. As they called it: BFF, best friends forever.

The last time

Grover stopped at Nicole’s apartment two days before the fire. He had borrowed her air purifier and she wanted it back. He dropped it off. She ate Chinese food. She watched her favorite television shows. They hung out.

Two days later, Grover received an early-morning call from one of Nicole’s co-workers at Kansas Union. Nicole hadn’t shown up for work. There had been a fire at her apartment building.

Grover sent Nicole a text message. No response.

He called her. Her phone was off.

Maybe she had class, he thought. But he didn’t know her schedule.

He went to the apartments. No Nicole.

He went to the Red Cross Center. She hadn’t checked in. But there were more than a dozen unaccounted for.

“I just figured that she was all right and probably lost her phone in the fire,” he said.

Grover went to Lawrence Memorial Hospital. She hadn’t checked in.

With worry mounting, he called Nicole’s mother, Nancy, in Wichita.

Nancy had planned on coming up for the weekend, bringing family. She left the family behind and headed for Lawrence.

“I didn’t know what to do, so I just started calling people,” Grover said.

He called Nicole’s friends in Wichita. He stayed at his house and waited.

“I was really concerned about my friend,” he said.

Detectives stopped by. They asked questions. They didn’t offer any information.

Grover went back to the Red Cross, where Nancy Bingham was. The terrible knowledge was setting in.

“She had that 1,000-mile stare,” he said of Nancy. “She just kind of had a stone look on her face.”

It was hard for Grover to listen to Nancy’s Bingham’s voice. He could already sense the loss in it.

When he left the building, he sat in his car and broke down. He had lost faith Nicole was OK.

“It just all kind of hit me at once,” he said. “I already knew.”

No accident

On Tuesday, police announced they had arrested 20-year-old Jason Allen Rose. He was later charged with arson and murder in the death of Nicole and two others.

Grover listened to the press conference on the radio. The news that the fire wasn’t an accident didn’t make him angry. It made him sick. He cried again. For the rest of the day, he felt like he was going to throw up.

“The fact that someone actually started it just made it a lot harder,” he said.

But Grover doesn’t judge Rose. He’ll leave Rose to the courts.

He has questions. But, so what? It doesn’t really matter.

“My friend is still gone,” he said. “The answers to my questions aren’t going to bring her back.”

Jose Gonzalez

When people who knew Jose Gilberto Gonzalez are asked to describe him, there is no hesitation.

“He was a free spirit,” said his sister, Maria Gonzalez.

“Excellent guy. All the way around,” said Dale Wolford, project manager and co-worker at Quality Electric Inc., 1011 E. 31st St.

A photograph of Jose Gonzalez surrounded by flowers was displayed at a memorial service for the 50-year-old Lawrence resident who died in last Friday's fire at Boardwalk Apartments. Services were Saturday at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church

Jose Gonzalez, 50, was one of three people who died in the Boardwalk Apartments fire Oct. 7. He was remembered with a mixture of songs, prayers and tears Saturday morning during a memorial Mass at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church.

“Let us recognize that Jose is there in eternal life waiting for us, and he also is very much here with us,” the Rev. John Schmeidler said.

Identification of his remains could take weeks, but authorities have unofficially told the family that he died in the blaze, Maria Gonzalez said.

“They are 99 percent sure. This gives us some closure,” she said shortly before the memorial service.

Family from South Texas, Hawaii and Kansas gathered in Lawrence for the service.

“It’s just a bad time for us, but the service was good,” Maria Gonzalez said.

Jose Gonzalez was born in Edinburg, Texas, attended Catholic schools and graduated from St. Anthony’s High School in San Antonio. He had two sisters and five brothers.

Jose Gonzalez.

He moved around often and was married once but that didn’t last, his sister said.

Gonzalez had no children, but he was a wonderful uncle, she said.

“He traveled around a lot. He liked to hang out, play pool, and he loved sports,” Maria said.

He came to Lawrence about three and a half years ago and worked as an apprentice electrician at Quality Electric.

“He had really settled down,” Maria said.

Wolford said Gonzalez was a hard worker, easy going and friendly.

“He worked mostly residential. He knew what he was doing,” he said.

Maria said her brother’s death was especially painful because authorities now say the fire was deliberately set.

Jason Allen Rose, a 20-year-old resident of the apartments, has been charged in connection with the fire.

“If indeed it turns out it was him, may God forgive him,” Maria Gonzalez said, “because he took a lot of lives.”

Yolanda Riddle

Yolanda Riddle had all the classroom credentials to be a good social worker: an associate of arts degree from Haskell Indian Nations University, a bachelor’s degree in social welfare from Kansas University and a master’s from Washington University in St. Louis.

But Riddle’s friends said her best skills as a social worker weren’t those learned from a textbook but were instead the product of her big heart.

Yolanda Riddle, right, is shown with her sister, Bobbie Affani, a week before the fire. Services for Riddle were Friday.

“She would come over and give you a big hug exactly when you needed one,” said Hank Sipple, a Lawrence foster parent with whom Riddle was assigned to work.

Riddle worked as a child welfare specialist for Social and Rehabilitation Services in the agency’s Ottawa office.

“She had lots of talents that you couldn’t learn in school,” said Susana Mariscal, who was training with Riddle to be a volunteer at Women’s Transitional Care Services. “She had a quality of being that was difficult to find.”

Some members of her family are just now learning the full extent of Riddle’s compassion because she seldom spoke of her job.

“I’ve heard some stories,” said Bobbie Affani, Riddle’s older sister. “I didn’t know we had a saint.”

There was the time, for example, when Riddle was working with a young boy scheduled to sing in a Christmas pageant. The boy didn’t want to sing; when the time came, Riddle stood up in the audience so he could focus on her and ignore the rest of the audience.

Yolanda Riddle

“He sang to her,” Affani said.

Such stories make it more difficult for Affani to contemplate the manner of her sister’s death in the Boardwalk Apartments fire. Authorities have charged a 20-year-old man, a product of the foster care system, with starting the blaze.

“I cannot make sense of that,” Affani said. “I don’t know how my sister would’ve felt about that. She saw a lot, but she didn’t discuss a lot.”

Riddle was born March 1, 1972, in Wichita, the daughter of Bobbie J. Riddle and Helen Phillips. Survivors include her father, Wichita; Affani; and a half-sister Wendy Phillips, Long Beach, Calif.

Riddle was a member of the Dine Indian Nation.

Riddle’s “bubbly” personality and free spirit were hallmarks, several friends said.

“The first thing that comes to mind when I think of Yolanda is not a word, but a smile,” said Dan Wildcat, a Haskell professor who taught Riddle. “The first thing I do is smile when I think about her. If you think of another person and they bring a smile to your face, what a tremendous gift they have left you.”