WASHINGTON - Families and friends of the victims in a deadly Metro collision spent the day after the incident emotionally distraught as they remembered their loved ones.

Tawanda Brown went to the D.C. morgue to identify her daughter's body. Twenty-three-year-old LaVonda King of Northeast D.C. was one of those killed in Metro's red line crash.

"I talked to LaVonda at 4:34 as she was entering the metro station to get on the subway," said Brown.

A total of nine people were killed and scores of others were injured when one Metro transit train smashed into the rear of another at the height of the capital city's evening rush hour. Cars of both trains were ripped open and smashed together in the worst accident in the Metrorail system's 33-year history.

Brown said when her daughter failed to pick up her two sons, two-year-old Emmanual and three-year-old Andre, from daycare, she frantically started calling authorities.

Metro Collision Victims:

Veronica DeBouise Mary Doolittle Ana Fernandez Dennis Hawkins LaVonda King Jeanice McMillan Maj. Gen. David Wherley, Jr. (ret.) Ann Wherley Cameron Williams

"She got on the train at 4:34 and that's the train she got on. And then I described the various tattoos that are on her body and they asked me for my location and they came over," said Brown.

Delshawnda King, LaVonda's sister, said, "I'm here just to have some closure to know it's really her."

LaVonda King had just opened a hair styling business in District Heights days before the fatal crash. Salon plaza manager Calvin Waller showed off her brand new room, hardly used. "It really hurt to see that someone so young, you know like, she had so much going for herself and everything was just taken so sudden."

Now, Brown is left wondering why. "I have questions about the incident, like why did it have to happen? She had such a young life and she was doing only what she was supposed to do."

Stunned, grieving families came to the morgue and left. Among them, relatives of 40-year-old Ana Fernandez, an El Salvadoran immigrant from Hyattsville, who was on her way downtown to her night cleaning job. She was widowed with six children, her cousin said.

"A great mother... She's leaving six kids who are orphaned now. [Crying] I'm sorry."

Kris Van Cleave reports

64-year-old Dennis Hawkins also died in the horrific incident. The District native was going from the school where he worked to his church to teach bible study.

A life-long educator, he had no children of his own, but to his brothers, sisters and their families, he was their rock. "It's hard. I've had my moments; this morning - was a hard moment, but looking at him and what's going to come up, its still going to be hard," said victim's brother Norman Hawkins.

Sources confirm 62-year-old Maj. Gen. David Wherley Jr. and his wife Ann, also 62, died in the crash. Wherley served as commanding general of the D.C. National Guard from July 2003 to June 2008.

The couple leaves behind a son David, daughter Betsy and one grandchild.

"They were just a grand couple," said Toni Aluisi, a neighbor and friend of the Wherleys. "They were generous, they were kind but they were so much fun."

The Metro board passed a resolution providing $250,000 in emergency hardship funds for families of the deceased and survivors to assist with funeral costs and medical bills.

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