Mukilteo Shooter Allen Ivanov Sentenced To Life

A judge decided on Thursday that Allen Ivanov should spend his life in prison for killing three people and wounding others in a mass shooting at a gathering in Mukilteo over the summer. He was sentenced Thursday morning in Snohomish County after entering a guilty plea last month, a move that allowed him to avoid the death penalty.

Ivanov, 20, pleaded guilty in December to charges including aggravated first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, and first-degree assault. Ivanov will never get the chance for parole.

On July 30, 2016, just after midnight, Ivanov went to a gathering at a home in the Chennault neighborhood, and began shooting. He killed his ex-girlfriend, Anna Bui, as well as Jacob Long, 19, and Jordan Ebner, 19. Will Kramer, 18, was shot in the back, but survived the attack. According to testimony, Ivanov targeted Bui because he was upset over their separation.

Before the sentencing, family of the victims addressed the court about the pain they had experienced as a result of Ivanov's actions.

"The death of Anna was [the] most painful thing that has ever happened to me" said Phuong Bui, Anna Bui's cousin.

She went on to describe the trauma of seeing how her cousin's face had to be reconstructed in order have an open casket at the funeral; how her uncle, Anna's father, cried over his daughter's casket, begging for her to come back.

"A person does not get over that," she said. "Every time I remember that image, my heart breaks over and over again."

"I experience deep grief over what happened and still do," Paul Kramer, Will Kramer's father, said Thursday. "It's been very intense with wave after wave of deep sorrow moving through me ... It is incomprehensible how a young man from our community could do something like this. This was truly a senseless crime with no justification whatsoever."

Kramer also called Ivanov a "deranged coward."

Ivanov spoke before his sentencing; he apologized for what he did, and said that he was suicidal on the night he committed the shooting. Ivanov also wished that the state's gun laws would change so that someone in his mental state couldn't get a hold of one.

"I have ruined my life. I have caused my family a life of sadness and loss. I have ended all of my friendships," he told the court.

Ivanov had initially pleaded not guilty to the charges on Aug. 22.

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