Your Help is Needed After a Senseless Act of Violence

“My niece was walking out the door when the guy got out of his van and just started shooting everybody,” writes my friend, Jocelyn Warriner. “I’ve lost a wonderful person in my life. Her two daughters have lost a wonderful mom and my sister lost great daughter.”

“You will be missed Denny, rest in peace,” she adds.

She’s talking about 42-year-old Irene Denean Halverson who was better known to family and friends as “Denny.”

It began Friday evening, February 14, 2015 around 7 pm, when Everett, Washington Police arrived at a home on 75th Street Southeast to discover three people shot. When officers approached, they found a woman and a man dead and third person seriously injured.

Witnesses say a van pulled up to the home, where the gunman got out, took a rifle from the vehicle, walked to a nearby fence and started shooting. Denny died as she exited the front door.

After closing down the roadways in the area and getting help from King County Air and a SWAT team, police were able to arrest a suspect. He was taken into custody after stopping his vehicle at Forest Park and talking with police on a cell phone.

He is in the Snohomish County Jail facing assault and 2nd degree murder charges. The suspects name has not been released.

Another witness said he spoke with the suspect and one of the victim’s jus’ hours before the shooting. He told reporters that the suspect seemed level-headed but was struggling with his own sobriety.

Kevin Odneal, who shared the home with his mother, also died in the attack.

Local news agencies say two men were killed in separate murders at the home in 2008 and 2011. The house has also been the scene of many incidents including a search warrant in December by the Snohomish County Auto Theft Task Force.

Jocelyn and I have been life-long friends since our days together at Francis E. Warren AFB, in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  She has set up an account to help defray the funeral expenses.

Please give any amount possible and keep Jocelyn and her family in your prayers as they grieve.  I thank you in advance.