When the rest of the servers at Longhorn Steakhouse in Warwick were running around, harried on a busy weekend night, Stephen M. Libera was "very calm, very well mannered," said manager Gary McCauley. "He was one of those guys, always level headed under pressure."

And when moods were down at the restaurant, McCauley said, Libera would "go back to the kitchen and crack a joke to lighten the mood."

Libera, 21, worked at the restaurant for about a year and a half, splitting time between a job at a local bank and classes at Community College of Rhode Island.

He was a bank teller and had been studying with hopes of becoming an accountant.

"He was a fantastic employee," McCauley said. "He was always responsible. He was always the person that you could rely upon to definitely be here."

Libera, tall, slender and affable, was chatty and charming, said neighbor Denise Merrill.

"You can get waiters sometimes who are very aloof," she said. "But not him. He was personable."

Libera told a few employees about the upcoming Great White show.

"He was into bands," McCauley said. "He liked to go out to see live music a lot."

He left behind his father, John J. Libera, his mother, Joanne, and two sisters and a brother.

"We all lost a friend," McCauley said.