Months after husband's death at Trump rally, Helen Comperatore ‘still trying to heal’

Helen Comperatore still is processing the death of her husband, Corey, 50, who was shot and killed two months ago during a campaign rally for former President Donald Trump at the Butler Farm Show grounds.

“I think it’s the trauma of it all,” Helen Comperatore said. “I think that’s something that we all have to learn to get over.”

Part of having post-traumatic stress disorder, she said, is trying to “get through that incident” that claimed her husband’s life and wounded two rallygoers. Minutes into his speech, Trump’s ear was clipped by the 20-year-old gunman in a diverted assassination attempt July 13 before Trump was rushed off stage by Secret Service.

“It’s just so traumatizing,” she said.

When the news frenzy around the shooting died down, Comperatore said she was relieved.

The day after the shooting, she opened the door of her Buffalo Township home to let her dogs out and saw “media everywhere.”

“That was crazy,” she said. “The media was going to my daughters’ houses. It was just a little out of control. I was just not prepared at all.”

The intense scrutiny on the family continued for about a month, she said, before “things calmed down.”

“We just felt like we had no time to really grieve,” she said. “We needed that time to break down, to just be able to breathe. We were grateful that everybody left and left us alone.”

“I never expected anything like what has happened,” she said, reflecting on the July 13 rally.

“We’re all still trying to heal,” she said. “We’re grieving, and, you know, his loss is still very, very prominent. You just start trying to live your life without this huge, huge presence, and it’s very difficult.”

Comperatore said she continues to receive cards in the mail every day from someone showing their support to the family. One card was postmarked from England, she said.

Additionally, the response from the community and from her church has been “amazing,” she said.

“They were a constant in our lives, and they still are,” she said. “My phone rings every day, all day. And it’s usually just making sure that I’m OK. ‘Do you need anything? Can we do anything for you?’

“(Corey and I) said that we would never leave (Sarver) until both the girls got through school, and now here I am, you know, I really don’t want to leave, either,” she said about Buffalo Township. “It’s a great community full of great people, and I found that out when I lost my husband.”

While she admits it was a difficult decision, and she feels somewhat apprehensive, Comperatore said she plans to attend the Trump rally Saturday.

She said she won’t let fear stand in the way of returning to the Butler Farm Show grounds.

“I’m gonna do a lot of praying,” she said.

The former president, she said, invited her to attend. Reflecting on the upcoming return to the site where her husband was killed is saddening, she said, but the decision ultimately is to honor her husband.

If given the opportunity, she said, she would agree to speak to the crowd.

She said her husband was excited to attend Trump’s campaign event July 13. It was her first time at a rally, she said.

“My husband was super excited, so we went early,” she said. As rallygoers poured in, she said, he grew disappointed.

“He’s like, ‘Well, now we’re gonna have to stand in the grass,’” she said. “But then somebody came over and offered us a seat over where we were sitting, which was in the balcony bleachers over to the right side of President Trump. And unfortunately, you know, like I’ve said before, I wish we would have never moved there.”

“I definitely don’t want him remembered for anything political at the rally,” she said about the legacy her husband leaves behind.

Instead, Comperatore said, she wants her husband to be remembered “as a great dad and a great provider.” Before his death, he would visit and help his youngest daughter, Kaylee, 24, who had “just gotten a house,” his wife said.

“He just loved his girls,” she said. “I mean, he wasn’t one to pick up the phone and, you know, just call every day. But, you know, he was there when they needed them. And, you know, he loved them. He was a very humble guy. He was quiet.”

Corey Comperatore was calm and collected in a crisis, she said, a quality he exemplified at the rally when he shielded his wife and daughter from gunfire. He also was a longtime volunteer firefighter, whose passion began when he was 16.

In 1999, he was nominated as fire chief of the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company, Helen Comperatore said.

“He loved the thrill of going into a burning building,” she said. “It was a true thrill … the fact that he could save someone’s animal or save a human being.”

Being called to the scene of an accident took its toll on her husband, she said, and “that would live with him for a few days.”

“But, for the most part, it was the chance that he could save a life” that drew Corey Comperatore to being a fireman.

The Comperatores were married 28 years. They would have celebrated 29 years of marriage a week after the shooting.

The couple started dating as high school students in the Freeport Area School District, but, Comperatore said, they had known each other since kindergarten.

“I always thought Corey was mean because he always had, like, this just really somber-looking face,” she said. “He just always never really smiled walking down the hallways … but once you got Corey talking, he was so sweet and kind. He would do anything for you.

“That’s kind of how Corey and I started, being up on the phone, talking till 1, 2 o’clock in the morning,” she said.

The husband and wife talked about “anything and everything,” she said, up until his death July 13.

She would accompany him every weekend on a boat, reading while he would fish. In a way, those conversations helped prepare her for his death, she said.

“I even knew a lot of his plans he wanted for after he passed away … because, you know, that was something that we talked about on the boat,” she said.

When asked if there was anything she wishes she would have told her husband before his death or wishes she would have asked him, she replied that there was nothing she would have said differently or that she didn’t already know the answer to.

The two shared everything, she said, and told each other “I love you” throughout the day July 13.

“I knew how he felt about me, and he knew how I felt about him,” Helen Comperatore said.

“I know in my heart that he probably has no regrets, and that would be Corey,” she said.

This story is published as part of a collaboration with the Butler Eagle