'ALL I COULD HEAR WAS MY BABY SCREAMING': Recent H.S. grad from Philly ID'd as youngest Orlando attack victim — graduated third in class, was student athlete

 Akyra Murray — the youngest victim slain in the Orlando attacks — was a talented athlete and a sharp student who went to Florida to celebrate her high school graduation.

She was just 18 years old.

The young woman from Philadelphia spent her final moments hiding and crying for her parents in the besieged Pulse nightclub, while nursing a gunshot wound to her arm.

“All I could hear was my baby screaming,” Murray’s mother, Natalie Murray, said.

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The grieving mother recalled her daughter’s final phone call while driving to the Orange County Coroner’s Office to claim Akyra’s body.

“It was devastating,” she said.

Last Monday, Akyra Murray graduated third in her class of 42 students from West Catholic Preparatory High School, with plans to attend Mercyhurst University.

Murray had recently signed a letter of intent for the Erie school, which offered a full scholarship to play basketball following a successful year in which she scored 1,000 points for the Lady Burrs.

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The family went to Florida expecting to visit Murray’s brother in college.

Murray said she wanted to go to Pulse — a gay club that allows clubbers as young as 18 to party — with her cousins and a friend identified as Patience Carter, 20.

“She doesn’t drink, she just wanted to have a good time,” Natalie Murray said. “We dropped her off at 11:30 p.m.”

But just after 2 a.m., she and her husband received an alarming text message from their daughter that there had been a shooting and she needed a ride.

She and her husband sped to the club from Kissimmee in the hopes of rescuing Murray, telling their crying daughter to stay calm and keep applying pressure to her arm as she hid in the bathroom stall for hours.

They hung up to call police and never spoke to their daughter again.

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The family spent the next 27 hours searching hospitals and calling police for word of their daughter, but learned nothing until investigators confirmed she was among the dead.

Police identified Murray in the final round of victims Monday afternoon.

Murray’s friend Carter was wounded in the attack and is expected to recover.

She is a student at New York University and is an aspiring musician.
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