Anna Bui laid to rest surrounded by family, friends, community

EVERETT — Anna Bui was surrounded by familiar voices during her memorial service at St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church on Friday.

Former choir mates from Kamiak High School sang in honor of the 19-year-old who was shot dead July 30 along with two other former classmates at a house party in Mukilteo. A fourth shooting victim survived.

Mourners filled the church’s 750-person sanctuary past capacity for a Mass in English and Vietnamese.

“There are no words that can bring healing to this family right now,” Deacon David Alcorta told reporters gathered outside the church before the Mass.

Alcorta spoke of “a model student, a model family.”

Bui was born in Everett in 1997 to Hung Bui and Rachel Nguyen.

Programs for her service described an inspiring and sincere young woman who enjoyed “smiling, laughing, shopping and having a good time with family and friends.”

“Her wishes for the world were for ‘gas prices to go down, to spread love to others, serve the poor, and for others to be happy with who they are,’ ” the program said.

Bui graduated in 2015 from Kamiak High School, where she was a member of the school choir. She was active at St. Mary Magdalen and sang in the Vietnamese church choir.

This past June, she finished her first year at the University of Washington’s Bothell campus and became certified as a nursing assistant.

Her funeral Mass lasted more than an hour.

Mukilteo School Board member John Gahagan was among those who packed the Everett church, along with Bui’s family, fellow parishioners and the wider community. Current and former Kamiak students wore purple ribbons in honor of the victims, all of whom graduated from the Mukilteo school together. White flowers were piled at the altar.

“It was beautiful,” Gahagan said. “It was a traditional Catholic Mass, but it was about a third in Vietnamese.”

Gahagan didn’t know Bui or her family but remembered hearing her sing. He also endured the loss of his son, 17-year-old Sean Gahagan, who died of a drug overdose in 2008, shortly after graduating from Kamiak.

Bui was buried at Holyrood Cemetery in Shoreline after her service.

She was killed in a mass shooting at a home in the Chennault Beach neighborhood of Mukilteo. Also shot dead were Jordan Ebner and Jake Long, both 19. Will Kramer, 18, is recovering from a gunshot wound suffered in the attack.

Another 2015 Kamiak graduate, 19-year-old Allen Christopher Ivanov, has been charged with three counts of aggravated murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder. He remained in custody at the Snohomish County Jail, ordered held without bail.

Mukilteo police detectives returned three search warrants Friday. The warrants allowed them to search the scene of the shootings, as well as Ivanov and his vehicle. Police said they found a Ruger semiautomatic rifle in Ivanov’s car when it was stopped near Chehalis. According to a Washington State Patrol report, troopers caught up with Ivanov after his cellphone pinged off a tower in the Olympia area.

Along with the loaded gun, detectives found two 30-round magazines. One was empty, according to the search warrant.

Detectives collected the suspect’s clothing and took cuttings from his hair. At the crime scene they also found a jacket with Ivanov’s identification inside, along with a pair of binoculars, investigators wrote. A package for binoculars was found in Ivanov’s car, court papers said.

Ivanov allegedly told police he was upset and jealous that Bui was seeing other guys. He said he broke up with her about two months ago, but he had hoped to reconcile.

Ivanov’s parents issued a statement this week saying their hearts ache for the shooting victims and their families. They also reached out to parish leaders at St. Mary Magdalen, said Alcorta, the deacon.

“We have had contact with his family, and we are praying for them as well,” he said.

Bui was the first of the victims laid to rest.

A memorial service for Long is set for 3 p.m. Saturday at Calvary Chapel in Lake Stevens.

Arrangements are pending for Ebner through Solie Funeral Home in Everett.

Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @NWhaglund.