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Friends and family celebrate Loraine Lynn’s life

Friends celebrate homicide victim’s life

Saturday, April 27, 2019

By SAMANTHA PHILLIPS

sphillips@vindy.com

LIBERTY

A joy to be around.

A strong woman.

A “class babe.”

These are just a few ways the late Loraine Lynn’s family and friends described her as they gathered Saturday afternoon to celebrate her life.

Thursday would have been her 62nd birthday.

“We miss her dearly,” said her daughter, Corrie Lynn. “She was taken too soon.”

Loraine was killed in August 2017 and found in her mother’s pond. Authorities are still investigating, and the family asks that anyone who has information contact the Liberty Police Department’s tip line at 330-539-9830. All tips are confidential.

Some 40 friends and family members congregated at the Vernon’s Café banquet center to reminisce about Loraine, or Lori as those close to her called her. Some even traveled from Florida, Virginia and Pennsylvania for the memorial.

“I would like people to talk about happy memories and to try to get some closure,” said Loraine’s older sister, Diane Pullin. “It’s been very difficult for us to get closure because the case hasn’t been solved. ... It’s good for us to get together and talk about all the good times we had with her instead of thinking about the case sometimes.”

Photo albums filled with pictures of Loraine smiling and laughing with friends and family throughout her life were on display. Multiple pages were spread on the tables with the words “Think Positive” and directions to write memories about Loraine.

“We wanted to keep everything positive,” said her daughter Samantha Lynn. She said it was good to hear happy memories about her mother, who loved spending time with her children and grandchildren.

Corrie agreed, saying it was great to have the family together. 

Loraine had been a heavy machinery operator for about 32 years and retired from Shelly and Sands not long before she died. She mainly operated excavators, the heavy construction equipment that is used to dig trenches, holes and foundations.

“She’s a bad---,” Corrie said. “Her career was in a male-dominated field and she just rocked it.”

Before Loraine was a heavy machinery operator, she worked as part of a demolition crew in Youngstown.

Wanda Pullin, Loraine’s mother, and Diane Pullin, Loraine’s sister, reminisced about Loraine working on construction projects with her father, and taking charge when something needed fixed.

Loraine had exciting plans for her life, including an upcoming marriage to her fiancé Mark Schoonover, who lives in Brimfield.

“She had a lot to look forward to,” Diane said.

Schoonover said Loraine had a great smile.

“She was always happy; she enjoyed life,” he said. “She loved spending time with her family and having her grandchildren spend the night. That was going to be her life after retirement.”

Diane had looked forward to traveling more with her sister, who had an adventurous spirit. They went on family cruises, and vacationed in Ireland a couple years ago.

“That was a lot of fun,” Diane said. “We went to the pubs at night and listened to Irish music, saw different towns, we walked miles and miles. We enjoyed the Cliffs of Moher, all the museums, and the last two or three days we stopped at every castle we saw.”

She laughed remembering how Loraine told her to kiss the Blarney Stone first, and then backed out of it.

Carl Larubbio, who has known Loraine and her ex-husband Timothy Lynn since a young age, described Loraine as a great person.

“What happened to her makes me sick,” he said. “She was a class babe. She was a likable person and got along with everybody.”