Vinessa Lozano was just trying to be nice when she befriended a male co-worker whom many considered a social outcast.
But when the outgoing 18-year-old rejected the man's romantic advances, he turned violent, police say, ambushing her and stabbing her more than 30 times Friday night outside of their Pizza Ranch workplace in Montevideo, in southwestern Minnesota. The first officer at the scene found him standing over the fatally wounded Lozano, holding the knife.
It was like a "high school crush gone bad," Lozano's mother, Robin Savoy, said, in a phone interview on Saturday.
When Darek Nelson, 24, began working at Pizza Ranch about a year ago, he didn't have many friends and was perceived as "a little different," Savoy said. Her daughter, being the "loving and caring person" she was, decided to make friends with him.
"She made him feel like he was important," Savoy said.
Unfortunately, Nelson misinterpreted Lozano's friendliness as something more and became obsessed with her, Savoy said. Lozano had told him that they were just friends.
His gestures seemed harmless enough, Savoy said. He would give her cigarettes when she forgot hers, and do her extra chores at work.
On Friday night, Lozano called her mother while on a smoke break at work and gave no indication that anything was wrong, Savoy said.
