Iowa Children’s Museum plans turtle habitat memorial to Farrington

CORALVILLE - One year after Andrea Farrington was shot and killed while working for the Iowa Children's Museum in the Coral Ridge Mall, the museum will unveil Sunday the design of a turtle habitat memorializing her.

The event is set for 2 p.m. Sunday at the museum.

'Andrea had 18 months ago said the turtle needed a new space,” said Deb Dunkhase, executive director of the museum.

In the museum's lobby where Farrington worked, there currently is a fish tank and a tank for 'Peter” the turtle, who has been in the museum since it opened in 1997. The new habitat will be five times as large, with half of the space devoted to the fish and half to Peter. It will include a plaque honoring Farrington, Dunkhase said.

Farrington, 20, had worked at the museum about six months and was fond of the turtle.

'We really value every single person that works at the Children's Museum - losing Andrea was very hard on our team, our staff and our museum family,” Dunkhase said.

The museum knew it wanted to create a turtle habitat in Farrington's memory immediately after she was killed. But it was too painful to start creating it right away, Dunkhase said.

'We want it to be about the joy she had in life, not about the pain of losing her,” she said.

The unveiling of the design comes less than a week after Alexander M. Kozak, 23, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the June 12, 2015, murder. Kozak, a former security guard at the mall, shot and killed Farrington as she worked at the museum's welcome center at the mall.

The museum plans a larger event in August when the new habitat opens.