While Ciara McDermott ’97 was a student at Fairfield, one of her classmates was frequently absent in her English class.

Her professor, Dr. Kim Bridgford, read a letter from the absent student explaining why she could not attend class. Her son was dying.

According to Bridgford, McDermott began crying and when the woman returned to class, she hugged her in sympathy.

“That’s the kind of student [McDermott] was,” Bridgford said. “She knew what the important things were in life.”

“She lived each moment to the fullest,” she added.

McDermott, 30, a Newington, Conn. police officer, was shot last Monday in her West Hartford home by a state trooper who later shot himself in an upstairs room. He was her ex-boyfriend.

Police said that Victor Diaz, 37, could not bear to see McDermott with another man.

The West Hartford Police Department declined to release any information about McDermott’s death to The Mirror. However, published reports said that McDermott was found by her current boyfriend, West Hartford Police Officer James DeLuca, shortly after Diaz placed a disturbing phone call to his lawyer.

McDermott had been shot five times in the head and chest.

Only three weeks before the murder, McDermott and DeLuca filed a complaint when they received a series of harassing phone calls from Diaz, according to published reports.

Although McDermott dropped the complaint, the West Hartford Police Department followed up on it, finding that Diaz had illegally obtained DeLuca’s name by writing down the license plate number of a car that was parked in front of McDermott’s house and then using the police department’s database to determine whose car it was, published reports said.

After being told that police had a warrant for his arrest, Diaz was supposed to turn himself in at 6 p.m. on the Monday of McDermott’s murder. The phone call to his lawyer was placed at 5:40 p.m.

While at Fairfield, McDermott was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and sang for the Glee Club. She also was the editor of the university’s literary magazine, The Sound. She was the winner of a position on the Connecticut Student Poetry Circulation, which enabled her to read her poetry around the state.

“She was an outstanding writer,” said Bridgford, faculty advisor to The Sound. “She cared a lot about her work and others’ work.”

Bridgford said that McDermott took the time to give students detailed comments about their writing.

“She always took care with everyone’s work,” said Bridgford. “She embraced the idea that everyone was a potential writer.”

Dr. Nick Rinaldi, Fairfield professor emeritus, said that in his classes, McDermott was “brilliant.”

“She was a rare person,” he said. “In a class that only had one or two A’s, she was one of them.”

Rinaldi said that while McDermott was mature, sensitive and good with the material presented in his class, she also had an excellent presence with the other students.

“She was very mature and knew what she wanted to do with her life,” he said. “She could have been a Ph.D. in the [English] profession or even a writer. I remember having that conversation with her, telling her that she could do any of those things.”

Upon McDermott’s graduation, she was deciding whether to pursue further education and attend graduate school or follow in her father’s footsteps and become a police officer.

McDermott chose to become a police officer, a job that would allow her to help others.

“Her father had a great influence on her life,” said Rinaldi.

Bridgford said that when Tony Sanders, Fairfield professor emeritus, learned of McDermott’s decision to become a police officer, he said, “she’s going to be a policeman poet.”

“Of course not everyone can be a professional poet,” said Bridgford. “But you can still express yourself through other ways.”

Before her death, McDermott had been counseling local high school students who had recently lost a classmate.

“She was very personable and I can see from the reports that she was very good with children,” Rinaldi said. “I remember her telling me that she wanted to work with children one day.”

Dean of Students Mark Reed said that Fairfield’s prayers and sympathies are with McDermott’s family and friends.

“For me, it is a reminder of just how precious life really is,” Reed said.

A statement from the university regarding McDermott’s death said, “Ciara McDermott was an outstanding student at Fairfield University and, as an alumna, lived a life in service to others, in particular, serving as a mentor, counselor and friend of the young students she encountered in her work as a police officer.”

Bridgford said that she was surprised and shocked when she heard the news.

“You always think about what could have happened when a person dies young,” she said. “You think about all the potential they had. Ciara was an extraordinary person who was always so supportive and generous to other people.”

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