Gonzaga-bound student killed in murder-suicide
STANWOOD, Wash. – On her 18th birthday, Dayna Marie Fure got a court order to keep her ex-boyfriend away from her.
But 10 days later, she was killed. Police investigators say Mainor Mario Valentin shot her, then killed himself.
Fure, 18, and Valentin, 23, of Seattle, died of gunshot wounds to the head, the Snohomish County medical examiner’s office said.
The young woman’s father discovered the bodies about 5 p.m. Monday at the family home in this city north of Everett.
Fure, a senior at Stanwood High School, did not attend school Monday. Police said they do not know when the two died or how Valentin entered the home, but there was no sign of a break-in.
“She tried to do everything right” to protect herself, longtime friend Tina Stivala told The Herald of Everett on Tuesday.
Fure had been accepted at Gonzaga University in Spokane and planned to study law. She recently received scholarships from the local Rotary, Kiwanis and Eagles clubs, according to Jean Shumate, Stanwood-Camano Island School District superintendent.
Her death has shaken the 1,565-student high school and the Stanwood community where she grew up.
“I couldn’t believe it when I heard,” said Stanwood High junior Rachael Lipinski, who was on the cross-country team with Fure. “I thought it couldn’t be true.”
Pam Otterson, Fure’s grandmother, said Fure met Valentin at a dance club two or three years ago. She said they dated off and on, but when Fure started dating someone else, Valentin didn’t handle it well.
She broke up with him about two months ago.
On May 13, when Fure was at a nail salon, Valentin showed up armed with a gun and threatened suicide. Later in the day, a co-worker at the Merrill Gardens assisted living facility, where Fure worked part time, called police after seeing Valentin in the parking lot.
Police phoned Valentin, who refused to tell them where he was. About three hours later, he came back to Merrill Gardens, sat inside his car and pointed a gun at his head. Negotiators persuaded him to surrender after 90 minutes, and police took him to a hospital for a mental evaluation.
“We know that he was distraught over the breakup and was having problems coming to terms with it being over,” said Deputy Rich Niebusch, a spokesman for the Snohomish County sheriff’s office.
Officers advised Fure to seek a protection order. Neibusch said she got the order the next day.
“He is determined to do whatever to get me back,” Fure wrote in papers filed in Cascade District Court on May 14.
“Since our breakup, Mario has made many verbal threats stating that on my 18th birthday (today) he would take his life,” she wrote in the order.
Valentin worked as a downtown safety “ambassador” in Seattle and was applying to become a police officer, said his sister, Marta Valentin. She described him as a “great kid.”