COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Ashley Paugh capped off a day trip in this city with a night of fun at the LGBTQ nightclub Club Q when a lone gunman opened fire, killing her and four others, her sister told NBC News in an exclusive interview.

Stephanie Clark said Paugh was a loving mother and wife who was devoted to her family, including her 11-year-old daughter.

“My niece is devastated,” Clark said, adding that Paugh “lived for her daughter.”

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Nancy Henjum, a member of the Colorado Springs City Council, said in an interview Monday that although the community has been racked with "great fear and devastation," she believes the town of Colorado Springs is "much greater than hate."

"There’s great fear and devastation and anger and sadness," she told MSNBC's Jose Diaz-Balart. "Our love is much greater than the hate in our community."

She described an "outpouring of love" over the past 48 hours and called Club Q, a long-held safe space for LGBTQ people in Colorado Springs, to "be in community."

Colorado Springs, a mostly conservative city of about half a million people, sits about 70 miles south from the more progressive Denver. It has a history of anti-LGBTQ activism and is home to the Family Research Institute, which has been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-LGBTQ hate group.

A poem as well as the book it appears in, both titled "Club Q," is circulating on social media after the deadly shooting there.

Poet James Davis "proudly named [the book] after a gay bar in Colorado Springs," according to his website. The book also won the 15th annual Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize.

In the poem entitled "Club Q," Davis describes the emotion and the feeling of finally belonging in a place.

"I stand for quest, which is to say mission, as in 'our mission is to provide a safe space for you to be yourself,' which is to say 'it is not always safe for you to be yourself,'" the poem opens.

The poem describes an immersive snapshot of the community and culture of Club Q. It closes with the words, "I stand for rainbow, and I stand for rain."

Club Q decried "disgusting rhetoric" increasingly directed at the LGBTQ community and thanked those who "moved immediately to stop the gunman" and likely prevented "more loss of life."

“Club Q is in shock, and in deep mourning, with the family and friends who had loved ones senselessly taken from them. We condemn the horrific violence that shattered an evening of celebration for all in the LGBTQ community of Colorado Springs and our allies," the nightclub said in a statement released through the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).

"Club Q offers our greatest gratitude to those who moved immediately to stop the gunman and prevent more loss of life and injury. Club Q has always provided a space for LGBTQ people and our ally friends to celebrate together."

It is still "too early" to tell how the suspect in the Colorado Springs shooting obtained the weapon used in the deadly attack or what the motive might have been, Colorado Springs District Attorney Michael Allen said Monday.

Speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe," Allen said the investigation into the shooting was still in its early stages.

“I think it would be a little bit reckless to say what might have been the motive or those kinds of things," he said. "Obviously, we’re looking at this as a bias motivated or hate crime type of incident, and we’ll learn more as this investigation progresses.”

He also said it was “too early” to tell if the suspect got the weapon legally or if he had assistance getting it.”

Allen said the suspect would already be facing “top level charges” due to the number of people killed and injured. Asked about reports of a prior bomb threat incident involving the suspect, Allen said investigators are aware of the allegations and, “we’ll be looking into that as well and we’ll be able to make some determinations as to how that may or may not be related to this incident.”

The mother of Daniel Aston, a 28-year-old identified as one of the victims of the deadly Colorado Springs shooting, has described the hours after his death as a "nightmare that you can't wake up from."

"I keep thinking it’s just, it’s a mistake. They’ve made a mistake and that he’s really alive. I just, you know, he lit up a room, this old expression, but he really did," Sabrina Aston told The Associated Press.

Aston, a transgender man who worked at Club Q as a bartender, was one of the five people killed at the venue on Saturday. He had moved to the area two years ago, with Club Q being the “first job he had,” his mother said, describing him as a “happy child from always” who “loved to laugh.”

Aston's mother said she first heard about the attack early Sunday when one of her son's friends called to tell her to say that Aston was in the hospital, according to AP. She said she rushed to Memorial Hospital to be with her son, but was told to wait at home for an update, only learning that he had died later that morning.

She said she felt “almost positive” the deadly shooting was a hate crime, adding that she wanted to speak out to “help other LGBTQ and the queer society get the exposure are out there and get our legislators to do some action.”

One of the two heroic patrons who were able to subdue the suspect in the deadly Colorado Springs attack used the suspect's own handgun to hit and disable him, the town's mayor said.

Speaking on NBC's "TODAY" show, Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said one of the patrons was able to take the suspect's handgun away from him and "use that weapon not by shooting it, but by hitting him and disabling him."

“It’s an incredible act of heroism," the mayor said. "That act probably saved a lot of lives.”