Lorena "Lori" Sandoval loved horror movies and books about vampires - scary make-believe stuff, said her sister, Karen Ribera.
But the horror story that played out in Ms. Sandoval's bedroom late Friday wasn't make-believe. She was strangled in an apartment done up in black with ghouls and a large cardboard Elvira figure in the living room.
Her one-time boyfriend, Sean Kresse, 24, has been charged in her death.

Mr. Kresse called his mother about 11 p.m. Friday asking for help. The mother drove from Fort Worth to the apartment off Coronado Drive in Denton and attempted CPR on Ms. Sandoval. She then called 911.

When authorities arrived, Mr. Kresse yelled at paramedics and scuffled with police. He was arrested and taken to jail for intoxication other than alcohol, police said. Later he was charged with murder. An investigation is continuing into the circumstances surrounding Ms. Sandoval's death.
Mr. Kresse remained in the Denton County Jail on Monday in lieu of $200,000 bail.

Denton County judicial records show that since 2003, Mr. Kresse has been charged with driving with a suspended license and evading arrest.

Ms. Sandoval, a 21-year-old senior at the University of North Texas, had dated Mr. Kresse, but there is some confusion about whether they were seeing each other again. Her sister said she wasn't sure of their relationship.

"The last we knew he was just friends with her," Ms. Sandoval's friend and co-worker, Amanda Cappe, wrote in an e-mail to the Denton Record-Chronicle. She said Ms. Sandoval had broken up with Mr. Kresse several weeks ago.

"She is a very kind and giving person, and so she was letting him crash on her couch because he didn't have anywhere else to go," Ms. Cappe wrote.

Ms. Sandoval grew up in El Paso, the second of three children. Her parents flew to Dallas when they learned of her death but returned to El Paso on Sunday to make funeral arrangements. Ms. Ribera, her sister, and Ms. Sandoval's friends Nikki Diaz, Eva Martinez and Nani Rivera-Cox stayed behind to clear out the apartment.

They talked about her Monday as they pulled pans out of kitchen cabinets and unloaded her dresser drawers.

"When we were growing up, she wanted to open a business in New Orleans," said Ms. Diaz, a childhood friend. "She was a big fan of Anne Rice and the Interview With a Vampire books [that] were set in New Orleans. We used to make our own Halloween costumes together."

After Ms. Sandoval graduated from high school in El Paso, she came to Denton to study at UNT. The business entrepreneur major would have graduated in May, Ms. Martinez said.

Her sister remembered her as a private person; yet she made friends easily.

"She would try to help people," Ms. Ribera said.

Ms. Sandoval worked part time at a movie rental store, a job she enjoyed for the movies and the posters she sometimes used to decorate her apartment.

"But most of all she loved her nieces," said a tearful Ms. Ribera, referring to her young daughters. "Most of all, she loved her family.