TACOMA, WA, U.S.A.
U.S. NAVY
CITIZEN, STUDENT
05/10/2016, FEDERAL WAY, WA, U.S.A.
“Your family gives you strength, gives you reason to get up in the morning to do what you got to do,” explained Adam’s father, Javier Gutierrez.
“We were just excited for the future,” said Marianne Gutierrez.
“Family was a big one” for Adam, along with abiding belief in the “golden rule” and being “kind to others,” she said.
Both came from biracial families, something later enjoyed in group photos taken at family gatherings. Adam’s father was Mexican-American; his mother of partial German background. Her mother was black, her father white. “Something to talk about,” explained Marianne.
Adam had been born in Bellevue. The family lived for a time in California, when his father, was serving in the U.S. Coast Guard. The family eventually settled in Federal Way, where Adam attended schools.
As a child, he played baseball, developing a passion for the game. “He loved baseball and he was obsessed with the Mariners,” said Marianne, a non-sports fan describing how Adam cheered and clapped while watching or listening to games.
He also played video games from early on. “He was kind of a big nerd,” Marianne said, emphasizing his aptitude for math and science.
In junior high, he and a friend were the only two members, for the first year, of a computer club that met before school. Teachers would pull the two out of class to fix a computer problem in another room, Marianne added.
Out of high school, uncertain of what he wanted to do, Adam enlisted in the Navy in 2004 knowing he eventually wanted to go to college. After basic training Adam was stationed in Norfolk, VA on an aircraft carrier.
Adam and Marianne met in Virginia in 2009 through a mutual friend. They married in 2011, after he awkwardly dropped to his knees and proposed during a trip to Seattle, at a Mariners game with family members there to witness the moment.
She insisted on a wedding where she grew up in Madison County, VA; it was the trade-off for the return to the Federal Way area.
In 2012, the couple moved to northeast Tacoma, near the Federal Way boundary. In 2014 Adam was attending the University of Washington as an electrical engineering student. Adam spent time on his studies, Marianne in her job as a sign-language interpreter.
On May 10, 2016, 30-year-old Adam Edward Gutierrez, who was out running with his dog was shot 7 times, a victim of a brutal, random act of violence.