An aspiring Colorado sports reporter and the others killed or wounded in a mass shooting at a movie theater in suburban Denver should be the focus of the public's attention, rather than the suspected killer, her brother said.

"The more air time these victims have the less time that man has his two seconds on television," Jordan Ghawi told CNN's "AC360" on Friday night.

Jordan Ghawi traveled to Aurora, where his sister, Jessica, was killed. He called the suspected gunman a "coward."

The young woman in her mid-20s -- who barely missed a deadly Toronto shooting last month -- was among 12 patrons killed, according to police.

Their father, Nick, who had asked her brother to head out to Colorado to "confirm what's happened," could not be reached for comment.

Jessica Ghawi had been at an Aurora multiplex to catch a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises," the latest installment of the Batman series, when a gunman burst in and began shooting.

A journalist and blogger in her mid-20s who also went by the name Jessica Redfield, she had tweeted about the movie not long before the attack.

"Movie doesn't start for 20 minutes," she wrote in her last message.

Ghawi's mother, Sandy Phillips, said she will miss communicating with her daughter.

"I'll never have her to hug again, or get a text message again or get a funny Facebook picture," Phillips told CNN affiliate KSAT in San Antonio, Texas, where her daughter grew up. "That's the hard part right now ... knowing those are things I'm never going to experience again."

Phillips told KSAT her daughter was excited the two would soon spend some time together.

"She had a huge heart," Phillips said. "Cared deeply for other people."

Ghawi's friend and fellow movie-goer Brent Lowek also was shot during the attack but later emerged from surgery at a medical facility, according to friends and relatives.

"It looks like he's going to be OK," his stepfather, Dan Greene, told CNN.

By Friday morning, a Denver radio station where Ghawi had once interned posted on Facebook that she had been killed.

"Sending thoughts, prayers and love to my friend Jessica and her family," 104.3 The Fan posted. "She is one of the victims who died in the theater shooting."

Her brother wrote on his blog earlier Friday that relatives had informed him that his sister was among the victims of Friday's shooting, taking two rounds, including one to the head.

"At approximately 0215 CST, I received an hysterical, and almost unintelligible, phone call from my mother stating that my sister, Jessica Ghawi, had been shot while attending the midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" in Denver, CO," he wrote.

Later Friday, Jordan Ghawi wrote, "essentially, she died quickly and painlessly. Now we will begin the process of bringing her home to celebrate her life."

Benjamin Hochman, a reporter for The Denver Post, described his friend Ghawi as an effervescent young woman, brimming with energy and a love of hockey that she sought to channel into the competitive world of sports reporting.

"I woke up this morning and saw that people had been texting me to make sure I was OK," said Hochman, who then checked Facebook and saw postings about Ghawi.

He'd written her a letter of recommendation just a few months earlier, and the two had become fast friends.

"I thought the world of her," he said.

Jordan Ghawi told CNN his sister was working hard to succeed in sports journalism.

"She left everything she knew in San Antonio to come out here to pursue that dream," he said