Shooting victim had La Conner ties

One of the five people killed in the Cascade Mall shooting has connections to La Conner, and her public memorial service is at the elementary school gym on Saturday.

Shayla Martin, 52, once lived in La Conner, and her children attended school here. Her daughter, Tanya Young, attended La Conner High, and her step-daughter, Pam Keller, is a La Conner graduate and the school’s assistant volleyball coach.

Young said the La Conner School District was very helpful in providing a high-capacity space to hold her mother’s service.

She said she’s been avoiding reading the news stories but knows that “some maniac came in and killed five people for some reason, and now four other families are going through the same thing we are.”

Also dead from gunshot wounds are Sarai Lara, 16, of Mount Vernon; Belinda Sue Galde, 64, of Arlington; Beatrice Dotson, 95, from Kingsport, Tennessee; and Chuck Eagan, 61, from Lake Stevens.

An Oak Harbor man, Arcan Cetin, 20, was arrested the following day and on Tuesday was being held in Skagit County Jail on suspicion of murder with bail set at $2 million.

“It’s a horrible situation, but I want it to be known that it’s not all bad, there is good,” Young said. “People like my mom — she was a shining example — and this community has shown that.”

She is remembered as someone who treated others with kindness, loved butterflies and antique jewelry, and had an upbeat attitude.

Young said her mother was a compassionate, creative and warm woman, who had many interests, including a love for tumbling rocks after collecting them from the beaches in Anacortes and Deception Pass.

“Thank you to everyone who opened up their hearts during this time,” she said.

The Skagit County community has held several gatherings in order to honor the five, including a candlelight vigil. Macy’s, where Martin had worked for 25 years, said a loving goodbye to their co-worker last Wednesday, at an employees-only return to the store.

Employees laid white roses throughout the store, and in Martin’s memory, released monarch butterflies outside — near a community memorial that has sprung up on a bench, where she’d take her work breaks. Inside, there was a large ice sculpture of a butterfly with the words “Shayla, My Love, My Butterfly.”

Amanda Kridler, who works in the fine jewelry department at Macy’s, was not at the store when the shooting occurred but had been at work earlier in the day.

Martin “was always just so happy,” Kridler said. “I’ve never seen her sad or down.”

“I’m really sad it had to end like that,” Kridler said, “but at the same time, she ended with love in her life.”