[CORRECTION: Reports from New Orleans, cited in this article, said that Sara Lamont had moved into an apartment late last year with the man who police say killed her. The Lamont family disputes that, saying Sara had her own apartment, according to Father Alberto Tamayo.]
By JOHN T. WARD
A 25-year-old Tinton Falls woman studying law in New Orleans was shot and killed by her boyfriend before he turned the gun on himself sometime over the past weekend, according to a report by NOLA.com.
Sara Lamont, described as a “brilliant” student specializing in sports law, was killed by her 28-year-old boyfriend and classmate, Wajih Mazloum, in the apartment they’d shared for the past year, according to the report. Another roommate discovered their bodies Sunday morning.
“Everybody’s just in shock, a lot of people in tears,” said Father Alberto Tamayo, pastor of St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church in Red Bank, where Lamont was a congregant, a reader and choir member.
According to the NOLA.com report, “Mazloum purchased the pistol found by his body at a gun show within the past month, according to an acquaintance who declined to give his name. The man said he wondered about the purchase but was not overly concerned, and said he never saw the couple fighting. He said Mazloum lived at the Willow Street apartment for the past two years, and LaMont moved in late last year.”
Tamayo said Lamont was well-known in the church community, where she was a regular volunteer and her mother, Roxane, is the director of ministries, and her father, Bill, is also a volunteer.
“She was extremely bright, very intelligent, enthusiastic about life,” Tamayo said. “She was just a sweet, sweet young woman.”
Here’s NOLA.com, quoting Tulane Law School Dean David Meyer:
Meyer described LaMont as “really one of the strongest students here.”
“She was, truly, an enormously talented student with an enormously bright future ahead of her,” he said. “She was extremely accomplished academically, very personable and extremely hard working. She had a bright future before her, and she left a very big impression here.”
Mazloum, the dean said, “seemed to be positive and upbeat. There were faculty members here who were fond of him. He recently had begun working with a program assisting underprivileged youth in the city. He, too, had many things developing in his future.
“That’s what makes this tragedy so much more inexplicable.”
Lamont’s obituary says she was a graduate of the Communications High School in Wall Township and the University of Connecticut, Storrs.
According to NOLA.com, Lamont began working in the front office of the Lakewood BlueClaws minor league baseball club in 2007, while a senior in high school. Her profile on LinkedIn says she also spent 10 months doing inside sales for the then-New Jersey (now Brooklyn) Nets.
From the obit:
