Raleigh, N.C. — Cameron Village shopping center plans to raise awareness of domestic violence this weekend after Raleigh police say an employee at Pier 1 Imports was killed this week by her ex-husband.

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Employees, associates and customers will raise money and wear purple on Saturday and Sunday in memory of Kathleen Ann Bertrand – who was shot several times as she reported to work Monday morning – and other victims of domestic violence.

Investigators say that her ex-husband, Christopher Bertrand, was responsible for the crime. He committed suicide hours later.

"We feel this loss as a community," Smedes York, chairman of York Properties Inc., which manages Cameron Village, said in a statement Thursday. said in a statement Thursday. "Everyone in the Village may not have personally known this young woman, but her death has affected all of us. It's an appropriate memorial to bring domestic violence into the forefront this weekend in her memory."

Cameron Village is trying to raise $10,000 within the next month for the Kathleen Ann Bertrand Family Memorial Fund to go to the Bertrands' three children – ages 13, 11 and 7 – "as they pick up the pieces of their lives."
Several businesses will also donate a percentage of their sales to a memorial fund in Bertrand's honor.

Court documents indicate that Kathleen Bertrand had sought out a domestic violence protective order in the past because her husband harassed her to the point that she and her three children went into hiding.

Kathleen Bertrand's death marked the fifth domestic-violence homicide in Wake County since May.

Statewide, according to the North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence, there have been 45 such cases, including hers, this year.