This is how Alison Kate LaPorta is being remembered.
The 38-year-old mother was killed by her boyfriend, 47-year-old Huy Tien Nguyen, on Wednesday, April 17 in Lorton, as previously reported by Daily Voice.
According to Jessica Harris, a relative and "sister" to LaPorta, the two had been texting right up until the deadly shooting. Harris said it was only then that she learned Nguyen had been abusive toward LaPorta.
And far too late.
In screenshots obtained by Daily Voice, LaPorta communicates that Nguyen had fired shots at or near her, and that she was scared. Loved ones had urged her to contact the police.
"I'm scared of my other half," she said. "He's confused it's not his fault.
"I kinda don't know what to do," she continued. "This guy will kill me."
Harris tells Daily Voice that Nguyen had been teaching LaPorta how to make guns.
"She was excited I think about that," Harris said. "She had gotten a cat which she missed because she didn’t have any animals for so long.
"She was an amazing mother and friend to any and everyone she met. She was dedicated to making her life new. A fresh start."
Nguyen initially told detectives the shooting happened in a parking lot, but police later learned through their own investigation he shot her in a vehicle, they said.
Detectives found the firearm near Nguyen’s Lorton home before he was arrested and charged with second-degree murder and use of a firearm in commission of a felony.
Services have not yet been finalized for LaPorta, a mother to a son and a daughter. However, condolences were pouring in.
"I keep reading the texts we would send the random I love you’s and so many came yesterday for now I understand why," Harris writes in a tribute to LaPorta. "Maybe in a way you knew and had known. I love you so much I’m sorry I can’t fix this I’m sorry he took you away from us I’m sorry I didn’t know."
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