TEMPERANCE, MI — A celebration of life service has been scheduled for Gwendolyn Smith, 17, who died Saturday, June 14.
The service will be held at 8 p.m. Thursday, June 26, at the Bedford High School Community Stadium, 8285 Jackman Road, where she often played with the Bedford Public Schools marching band.
“She was a vibrant, creative, yet goofy person who had a deep passion for all to be happy,” read an obituary by the Urbanski Funeral Home.
Smith was found dead by her stepfather when he returned home that Saturday to find her and Ryne Leist, 33, dead from gunshot wounds. Autopsies deemed it a murder-suicide.
Leist was a bowling coach employed by the Forest View Lanes bowling alley in Temperance. He had worked with students on the Bedford High School bowling team, but had previously resigned.
“In school she was active with the Bedford Kicking Mules Marching Band, Varsity Band, Jazz Band and participated in solo and ensemble and state festivals and was also a member of the bowling team. She was very talented and played different instruments,” her obituary reads.
There was nothing to indicate that either Leist or Smith considered the relationship between the two of them to be romantic, according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. There was a communication between the two five days prior to the killing that the sheriff’s office is investigating.
— Contact reporter Connor Veenstra at CVeenstra@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Celebration of life planned for slain Bedford grad
Reporting by Connor Veenstra, The Monroe News / The Monroe News
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