A mother of two has been charged with killing her daughter while the teenage girl was telling a 911 operator of her mother’s plot to kill her former husband.
52-year-old Svetlana Laurel of Kent, Washington was arrested on Dec. 17 for killing her daughter and kidnapping her son during a murder plot aimed at her husband
Laurel and her husband, Michael Gulizia, 53, married in 2001, separated in 2015, and divorced in 2017. They were embroiled in a very contentious divorce; Laurel was appealing parts of the divorce decree in an effort to get more money.
The judge had originally given the children to Laurel, but Gulizia had recently been awarded custody of both children, Renton Police spokeswoman Sandra Havlik told People magazine.
For whatever reason, Laurel showed up at her husband’s home on Dec. 17, armed with a bundle of zip ties, a taser, and a pistol, according to a police affidavit. Her plan, she told her husband, was to kill him because he had ruined her life.
“The 14-year-old daughter that was there tried to call 911 to get some help,” Renton Police Commander. David Leibman told KIRO News. “The mother found out she was calling 911 and shot her.”
“She was just trying to do the right thing,” Commander Leibman said of the daughter’s actions to Komo News.
“She was trying to get help for the family and for this to happen is just tragic.”
Svetlana Laurel booked into jail, suspected of shooting and killing her 14-yo daughter Natalie Gulizia in Renton last night. @KIRO7Seattle pic.twitter.com/v3lKKnzHxF
— AMY CLANCY (@ClancyKIRO7) December 19, 2018
911 Operator Hears the Grisly Action
A 911 operator serving Renton received a call at 8:13 p.m. from a 14-yearold girl who identified herself as Natalie Gulizia. During the course of the call, Natalie described how she and her father, Michael Gulizia, had been at a charity event until 8 p.m., while her 12-yeqr-old brother was at home doing homework.
According to the police report, Natalie and her father tried to enter through a normally unlocked side door, but found it locked. When they did enter, they found Svetlana Laurel holding a taser—which she immediately used to immobilize Michael Gulizia.
While Gulizia was down, Laurel secured his arms and legs with zip ties—something she had already done to the 12-year-old. Laurel pointed the pistol at Gulizia and told him she was going to kill him because she had ruined her life.
At 8:19 p.m. Natalie told the 911 operator that she had just heard her father screaming out that Laurel had a gun. At 8:25, the terrified teen told the operator that her mother had come upstairs.
Natalie left the line open and slipped the phone into her pocket.
Three minutes later, the 911 operator heard shouting coming over the open line. Some yelled “You called 911,” and then something about “Blow your head off.”
Next the 911 operator heard the sound of zip-ties being fastened—and then a gunshot.
Father Fights Back
Michael Gulizia couldn’t know exactly what had happened on the second floor, but he had every reason to fear the worst. When his former wife came back downstairs, she aimed the gun with which she had just killed her own daughter right at her ex and pulled the trigger.
The gun jammed.
Laurel began working to clear the blockage. Knowing he was seconds from death Gulizia—still bound hand and foot with zip ties—hopped across the room and rammed his ex-wife into a wall. The pair fell and struggled, but it was Gulizia, despite his restraints, which came up holding the firearm.
Gulizia kept the pistol trained on maniacal ex-wife until the police arrived at 8:32 p.m.
It turned out that Gulizia’s 12-year-old son had invited Laurel into the house when she showed up unannounced.
Laurel handed her son some clothing, saying it was his Christmas present. When her son replied that they were old clothes of his which he had left behind at the Kent house, his mother replied that she had lost her job and that was all she could afford.
Laurel then asked for a tour of the house, which she had only visited once in the previous eight months. When they reached her son’s bedroom on the second floor, Laurel zip-tied his hands and feet and taped a rolled-up sock in his mouth to gag him.
Laurel later removed the gag, but told her son she would tase him if he made a sound. She then began ranting—the word used in the police report—about how Michael Gulizia had ruined her life.
The 12-year-old heard his father and sister come home, and saw his sister run past his bedroom holding her phone. A few minutes later he heard his mother order his sister to stand still why Laurel zip-tied her, saying that she would blow her daughters head off if she resisted. She heard his sister trying to reason with his mother.
He then heard the shot.
After Laurel went back downstairs, the boy hopped into his sister’s room and saw that her head was covered with blood. He then hopped downstairs, where he soon met the police.
Svetlana Laurel was arrested and charged with suspicion of second-degree murder. At her arraignment the next day, Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney John Castleton asked that the potential charge against her be escalated to premeditated homicide.
Castleton told the court, “The state requests the court find probable cause for murder in the first degree, attempted murder in the first degree and three counts of unlawful imprisonment,” KIRO reported.
Laurel is currently being held at the King County Correctional Facility. She was denied bail.
A Union of Intellectuals
Both Svetlana Laurel and Michael Gulizia are well-educated.
Gulizia has a Bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Florida, and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Houston. He has worked as an engineer for Boeing since 1988, LinkedIn reported.
Laurel holds a Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD in Computer Science, as well as a Master’s in Business Administration. She speaks five languages, and holds a patent for a business management system she developed, according to LinkedIn.
The couple met while working at a Boeing Company facility in Houston, Texas and began dating in January, 1998, according to Heavy.com. They married on Dec. 31, 2001 and had two children together.
In 2004 the family moved to Costa Mesa, California and in 2006, to Kent, Washington. They lived together in Kent until January, 2015, when they agreed to separate and Gulizia left to live in an apartment. He filed for divorce in August of that year.
It took a year for the case to come before a judge. At that hearing, a parenting evaluator recommended that Gulizia be given sole custody of the children. Despite that, the judge sent the children home with their mother.
Laurel left Boeing in December 2017, Heavy.com reported, though the causes and details of her departure are unknown.
A Battle Over Cash and Property
One contributing factor to the shooting might have been the couple’s ongoing dispute over the allocation of money and property during the divorce.
Tragically, a few paperwork errors might have contributed to the dispute.
Due to misfiling and other errors in legal paperwork, Laurel was ordered to sell the family home in Kent, even though neither she nor Gulizia wanted the home to be sold. The children lived there and attended the local for all of their lives. Moving in with their father in Renton would mean leaving their home, schools, and friends.
Laurel offered to pay her ex-husband for his share of the house, but this offer was disallowed.
Apparently, along with failing to file certain paperwork on time, Laurel had refused to allow her husband to get an appraisal of the Kent home.
Then, her lawyer accidentally forgot to remove a paragraph in an agreement which ordered the sale of the home.
During the hearing, Laurel testified that she planned to sell the home anyway, and relocate to south Seattle. Her argument was about how much of the value of the house she would be awarded.
Ultimately, the judge ordered that Laurel needed to sell the home within three months. Laurel did not comply.
