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College degree for murdered Prospect High grad from Arlington Heights

Dana Mangi never gave up.

Not when she was a little girl and flubbed notes during a piano recital.

Not when she worked at a veterinarian's office caring for sick animals and their distraught owners.

Not when she received rejection letters from the veterinary schools to which she'd applied and very much wanted to attend.

Determined. Sensitive. Beautiful inside and out. That's how Mangi's family describes the brown-eyed brunette from Arlington Heights, whose life ended suddenly and tragically four years ago just as her dream was about to come true.

For most of her life, that dream centered around becoming a veterinarian. Officials from the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine will fulfill it for her family on Saturday, when they posthumously award Mangi her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree.

The Prospect High School graduate was weeks away from beginning her first year as a veterinary student in August 2007 when her friend Patrick Ford strangled and stabbed her to death at his Wrigleyville apartment.

Ford, 29, has never explained why he killed Dana, whose mother Barb Mangi says she believes he may not know himself. After Ford pleaded guilty but mentally ill to first-degree murder last year, a Cook County judge sentenced him to 35 years in prison and awarded him 970 days credit for the time he'd spent in custody since his arrest. He is due to be released in 2042.

Dana Mangi had not started classes at the time of her death but had worked at the veterinary college pharmacy during summer 2007 and met some of her classmates then. On Saturday, all of them will graduate together.

Barb Mangi calls the university's decision to award her daughter a diploma “an amazing gesture.”

“They didn't have to do it, but Dana impressed them,” she said.

Barb Mangi will accept the diploma on her daughter's behalf. She says it will be difficult to walk across the stage to receive it. But she'll do it for Dana, the dancer and skater who played softball and sang in her high school choir. For Dana the sibling, who took seriously her job as “annoying younger sister.” For Dana the charmer, who wrapped her grandparents around her fingers. And for Dana who as an undergraduate worked as a vet technician at Mount Prospect's Camp McDonald Animal Clinic, where she hand-fed a 13-year-old Westie named Bonnie during the dog's final days. Dana sat with the grieving family as Bonnie expired. After the family left the veterinary office, Dana broke down, said her mother, who worried the job was becoming too much for her daughter. But Dana handled it, the sorrow and the joy.

Failure sometimes makes people doubt themselves. Disappointment may cause them to abandon their dreams. Not Dana, says Sarah Mangi, who describes her younger sister as “the kind of person who, no matter how many times someone tried to push her down, got back up.”

Their parents raised Sarah and Dana to “look at life as if there's no problem that can't be solved,” Sarah said.

Dana personified that attitude. After graduating from Loyola in 2004, she interviewed at several veterinary schools. Denied admission, she enrolled at Midwestern University in Downers Grove, where she studied biomedical sciences and earned a master's degree in 2007.

A second round of applications yielded more rejections. A disappointed Dana “picked herself up” and tried again, said Joe Mangi. The third time proved the charm when she learned she had been accepted into the veterinary colleges at Minnesota and the University of Illinois. She had also earned a place at Midwestern's Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine.

“She was torn between veterinary school and medical school,” said Joe Mangi.

“Her passion won out,” added her mother.

Barb Mangi can't pinpoint exactly what inspired her daughter's love for animals, but she thinks the classic children's tale “The Poky Little Puppy” they read together might have had something to do with it. Dana expressed that passion in her veterinary school application in which she described working at a veterinary clinic: “I learned that veterinary medicine involves learning to both laugh and cry with people,” she wrote, “to be human and sometimes unwillingly accept defeat, and to return an animal's unconditional love.”

Her family says Dana inspired the same kind of affection. The outpouring of sympathy and support the family received after her death suggested how well she was loved, Joe Mangi said.

“She had a big heart,” said Sarah Mangi. “She let people in. Sometimes she got hurt, but she continued to let people in.”

Proof came in the form of a condolence note they received from a high school acquaintance of Dana's who described her comforting him following the death of his grandmother.

“Even though she didn't know me that well, she still reached out and lent an ear … and some comforting words,” he wrote. “This is how I will always remember her… She was kind. She cared… And I know that one particular day was one of many that she helped make a little brighter.”

Her determination was an inspiration, says her family, but Dana's legacy is her compassion.

Over the last four years, family and friends have expressed her compassion through charitable works, including raising $30,000 for an endowed scholarship in Dana's name which is awarded each year to a University of Minnesota veterinary student. They've also raised an additional $40,000 which they donated to the Anti-Cruelty Society, PAWS Chicago and Susan G. Komen for the Cure in Dana's name.

At his sentencing last year, Ford expressed his remorse to the Mangi family face to face.

His emotional apology changed Barb Mangi's opinion of the man she had come to think of as a monster.

“I realized he isn't a monster. He's a broken, messed up young man whose life is practically over,” she said.

Ford is in a prison of his own making, said Joe Mangi, but “he's not going to make my life a prison.”

“I refuse to live a life of hate or revenge,” said Barb Mangi at Ford's sentencing. Rather, she and her family intend to live their lives as fully as possible.

“That's what Dana would want us to do.”

‘Things that I did not learn in the classroom’

The Mangi family, from left, Sarah, Barb, Joe and Dana with their pets, Riley and Moose. Courtesy of the Mangi family
Dana Mangi Courtesy of the Mangi family
Sarah Mangi, left, says that when she failed at something she’d move on, unlike her tenacious sister Dana. “No matter how many times someone tried to push her down, she got back up,” Sarah said. Courtesy of the Mangi family
  Barb Mangi of Arlington Heights talks about her late daughter, Dana. JOE LEWNARD/jlewnard@dailyherald.com
  The Mangi family, Barb, from left, daughter Sarah and Joe, talks about the memory of Dana Mangi, who was murdered by a college friend. JOE LEWNARD/jlewnard@dailyherald.com
The Mangi sisters, Sarah, left, and Dana. Courtesy of the Mangi family
Dana Mangi, right, poses with her thesis adviser, Dr. Kathleen O’Hagan, following her graduation from Midwestern University. Courtesy of the Mangi family
“She was supposed to be with me forever,” said Sarah Mangi, left, at last year’s sentencing hearing for the man who murdered her younger sister Dana, right. A Cook County judge sentenced Dana’s college friend Patrick Ford to 35 years for the 2007 slaying of the Arlington Heights woman. Courtesy of the Mangi family
Dana Mangi with her father, Joe.
Dana Mangi with her mother, Barb.
Dana Mangi