‘She was a light’: Friend recalls woman killed in apparent murder-suicide
Katie Iandolo met Loren Marino in September 2022 at a karaoke bar in Haverhill, when they both got up to dance at the same time. From that moment, they were nearly inseparable.
“We were just dancing and having a great time and I looked at her and I said, ‘I think you’re my spirit animal,’” Iandolo recalled.
Both women “loved to sing and dance,” going to karaoke bars almost every Saturday, Iandolo said. They caught up on trips to Walmart and Target. The workers at Starbucks knew them as a pair. Iandolo’s three kids called Marino “Auntie Ren.”
“We got very close, very fast, and I loved spending time with her,” Iandolo said.
Both were survivors of domestic violence, and Iandolo supported Marino when she ended a violent relationship of four years in November. And when Iandolo’s grandmother died on Christmas Day, Marino was by her side, Iandolo said.
“She was a light,” said Iandolo, 36. “That’s the only way I can describe her. She always wanted everybody to be happy and have a good time, and that’s exactly what she did.”
On Sunday, Marino, 24, was found dead inside her Haverhill home, after her boyfriend, Austin Amaral, 24, of North Providence, R.I., shot her and then took his own life, according to the Essex district attorney’s office.
She and Amaral had only been together a short time, Iandolo said. But in many ways, the relationship seemed unhealthy, with Marino increasingly “secluded” from her friends and spending less time with Iandolo and her daughter.
On Jan. 7, the day of her grandmother’s funeral, Iandolo went to Marino’s to drop off her 6-year-old daughter. Amaral had spent the night, Iandolo said.
“It happened very fast,” Iandolo said. “He was there in the morning and he never left.”
From then on, Amaral seemed threatened by her relationship with Marino, Iandolo said. Before long, Amaral tried to block her from Marino’s phone and deleted her from Marino’s Snapchat, Iandolo said.
The two friends, who had talked every day, became more distant. Marino assured her she was doing
OK, saying she had “just been busy,” but Iandolo was worried.
“There was something off about the whole situation,” Iandolo said.
One night, when the two friends and Amaral were hanging out and “having a good time” at Marino’s apartment, Amaral showed Iandolo two guns he kept there.
Iandolo said she thought he was just trying to “be cool,” but could “tell in Loren’s face” she didn’t like the guns.
When Iandolo expressed concern, Marino told her that “he kept the bullets locked away.”
“I didn’t really think he would use those guns on my best friend,” Iandolo said.
Last Tuesday, Iandolo said she got “tired” of not seeing her friend and went to visit.
While Marino was in the bathroom, Amaral made an “inappropriate comment” toward Iandolo, which she promptly told her friend about when she returned.
When Marino confronted Amaral, he shoved her into a dresser in the bedroom, Iandolo said. Iandolo said she “flipped out” and she and Amaral got into a “yelling” argument. Iandolo ended up leaving, she said.
“It got pretty heated, and since that day, something was wrong,” Iandolo said.
Last weekend, Iandolo was about to fly to Las Vegas to help her dad move and she invited her friend. But Marino said she couldn’t go.
“It’s just not the right time,” Iandolo recalled her saying. “That was weird for me because she came everywhere with me.”
Marino was supposed to pick Iandolo up from the airport on Sunday. When she didn’t answer her phone, Marino called a downstairs neighbor to check on her and see if she was still asleep.
When the neighbor went to the apartment, she found Marino and Amaral dead. She called the police, but didn’t want to tell Iandolo while she was on a flight. When Iandolo landed in St. Louis for a layover, she got a text message with the news and “dropped to the floor” in the middle of the airport.
“I was lost,” Iandolo said. “I was surprised, I was in denial. I was hysterical, so many different emotions. But when I found out it was a gunshot, when I found out it was a gun, I immediately knew it was Austin.”
“I just wish she came to Vegas with me,” Iandolo said. “He came and took her life within two months.”