COEUR d'ALENE - Friends and family of Ryan Taylor weren't surprised Taylor went to the Hayden apartment complex Tuesday to offer help.

That was just like him, they said, always the first one to show up to make sure everything was OK.

But how that visit ended is what they still can't believe.

"I just keeping thinking it's a joke but it's not," said Kim Starnes, a longtime friend of Taylor's. "Ryan loved to joke around with people. I keep thinking he's going to jump out and say something."

It's like they're waiting to wake up from a bad dream, friends and family said, and when they wake up, it will be Tuesday, March 9 all over again.

"Maybe (then) we could make a phone call telling him to come hang out with us," said Jason Anderson, a 10-year-friend. "To keep him from going to that situation that just happened."

But on Wednesday, a day after Taylor was shot by his ex-wife's husband, Chad Moore, Taylor's loved ones gathered at Taylor's house on E. Gilbert Avenue to mourn the loss of the man they described as "a good old North Idaho boy."

"He's going to be missed, a lot," said sister Elizabeth Taylor, crying, still trying to make sense of the tragedy. "We had the closest relationship. I mean, we talked about everything. We did everything together."

The family didn't take comfort in the news that Moore's body had been found around 8:30 Wednesday morning in a forested area in Hayden, dead from an apparent self-inflicted gun shot wound according to the Kootenai County Sheriff's Department.

They would have rather seen him brought to justice, they said.

"I never thought he'd kill my brother," Elizabeth Taylor said of Moore.

Moore, 35, and Taylor, 28, had a rocky history, Taylor's family said, and Taylor went to the Lakeview Village Apartments on Tuesday afternoon after hearing that Moore had reportedly been physically abusive with Moore's pregnant wife, Amber - the mother of two of Taylor's daughters.

Amber had left the house, but Taylor went to check on the welfare of his daughters, who were getting out of school, after Taylor's brother, Chad, notified Taylor of what had happened.

Starnes was in Taylor's truck in the apartment parking lot with Taylor's first born daughter, who is 12.

Starnes said she saw Taylor knock on the door.

"It happened so fast there couldn't be an altercation," Starnes said. "No talking, nothing, Ryan was heading out the door and the next you thing you hear is two gun shots and Ryan falls to the floor."

The Kootenai County Sheriff's Department confirmed that the altercation stemmed from a domestic dispute.

The 12-year-old girl, from a different mother than Moore's wife, also witnessed the shooting.

"He was leaving the situation," Starnes said. "He was actually leaving. He was walking away, and for someone to do that to an innocent person. God only knows."

"You can check on your ex-wife," she said. "They have children together. He has every right to know if everything is OK."

Witnesses reported hearing the gunshots, seeing Taylor lying on the pavement in front of the apartments, and watching Moore flee the scene in his blue pickup truck northbound on Government Way.

Law enforcement agencies tracked down a possible match to the blue truck - which had been set aflame - three hours later to a wooded area near Hayden Creek Road and Triangle 7 in Hayden.

A multi-agency manhunt ensued, aided by search helicopter, and the area was blocked off.

Moore's body was found the next morning a with a pistol and a semi automatic rifle and several loaded magazines nearby.

The sheriff's department said evidence that tied Moore to the shooting was also found.

"My son was a very loved person," said Taylor's mother, Barbara Taylor, on Wednesday. "He was a very kind person who would do anything for anybody."

She said the thing she would miss most from her son, who loved fishing, camping, dirt biking and the outdoors, was "his smile."

Amber, who is nine months pregnant, went into labor after the reported physical altercation with Moore. Her condition has since been stabilized.

"We have a wonderful family," Barbara Taylor said. "We have a wonderful support group of friends."

The Grail Restaurant and Multipurpose Arena in Huetter is hosting a benefit drive at 8 p.m. Friday to help raise money for funeral costs and for proceeds to go to Taylor's daughters.

Cover charge costs $5 and the event will go to closing.

"It's shocking for me," said Chad Taylor on Wednesday. "I have to live with the fact that I made the phone call letting him know what happened every day of my life.

"If I hadn't made the phone call," he said. "If I just hadn't called."