Linette Lowe remembers that first impressions of Claire VanLandingham could be misleading.

“She may have come off as a little bit shy or quiet,” said Lowe, a staff member at the church VanLandingham attended while earning her degree in dentistry at University of Louisville from 2013 through 2017. “But her compassion for people overwhelmed that in pretty short order. She was able to reach out.”

Lowe and others made heartbreaking recollections of the example VanLandingham set Friday, two days after authorities said she died in Lake Forest from multiple gunshots wounds. Police confirmed Friday that they are investigating her death as a suspected murder-suicide at the hands of a former boyfriend.

“That’s the best working theory we have right now. But we are still interviewing people and trying to put all the facts together,” Lake Forest Deputy Chief Robert Copeland said.

Park District of Highland Park Ryan Zike Ryan Zike (Park District of Highland Park)

“So we cannot say conclusively that is what happened,” the deputy chief added, but said authorities “have no reason to believe there is another gunman somewhere.”

Police say VanLandingham, 27, was found with gunshot wounds outside a Dunkin’ Donuts on Western Avenue in Lake Forest early Wednesday and was pronounced dead at Lake Forest Hospital. A man later identified as Ryan Zike, of Louisville, Ky., was found dead at the scene with a gunshot wound to the head, officials said.

VanLandingham was a Navy lieutenant and recent dental school graduate who had started working last summer at Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago, providing dental care to recruits at nearby Naval Station Great Lakes, the Navy confirmed. She lived in Lake Forest.

Zike, 33, was hired in September to work as a naturalist for the Park District of Highland Park. But he resigned from the job only a month later, a Park District spokeswoman confirmed. That would have been shortly after his relationship with VanLandingham ended, according to a news release from the Lake County coroner, citing the investigation of the deaths by the Lake County Major Crime Task Force.

Before moving to the Chicago area, VanLandingham served as secretary of the First Unitarian Church of Louisville for a year. She also taught religion classes at the church, said Lowe, the church’s director of religious exploration.

Lowe recalled that VanLandingham provided dental care at a local clinic for low-income residents. After a trip to a developing country to provide dental care, VanLandingham returned to the youth education class she taught at First Unitarian and presented a slide show.

“She did such a wonderful job of showing how one ordinary person can make such a huge difference in the world, if they choose to do that,” Lowe said. “I really think she set an example for them.”

In a Facebook message to the Tribune, a brother, Ben VanLandingham, called her “the best human being I’ve ever met. She was smart and talented and devoted her life to trying to help others without ever taking credit for it.”

Zike’s friends contacted on Friday did not return messages or declined to comment.

A native of Terre Haute, Ind., VanLandingham attended Culver Girls Academy, a college-prep boarding school near South Bend, Ind., graduating in 2008, a spokesman for the academy confirmed.

Gigi Nieto, who attended Culver for a year, said VanLandingham was her closest friend, and the two kept in touch long after leaving campus. Nieto said the girls used to joke that they were twins because Nieto dreamed of becoming a doctor and VanLandingham aspired to be a dentist.

After leaving Culver and moving to Mexico, Nieto visited VanLandingham in Indiana, and accompanied the VanLandingham family on a summer trip to Michigan. When VanLandingham visited Mexico, Nieto surprised her with a mariachi band serenade on her birthday, she said.

“I will always remember us laughing and dancing together,” Nieto said in a Facebook message to the Tribune. “It was so great to be around her.”

Nieto said VanLandingham could always be counted on as a travel buddy or partner for inside jokes. Her nicknames included “Claire Bear” and “Goldie.”

“I admired her deeply for everything she was and everything she accomplished,” Nieto said. “I’m still shocked, I just can’t believe what happened.”

VanLandingham came to Louisville in 2013 after graduating from Indiana University in Bloomington and joining the Navy, a spokeswoman for University of Louisville said. She was involved in many community service projects, served as vice president of the Association of American Women in Dentistry’s Louisville chapter, was an active member of the university’s Hispanic Dental Association and represented the University of Louisville’s School of Dentistry in the 2016 Poland Exchange Student Program.

As church board secretary, VanLandingham always submitted her minutes on time and “was great” greeting visitors, recalled Jill Sampson, who served on the board with VanLandingham.

“She was all the things you want in a board member,” Sampson said. “Young, energetic, engaged. She was quiet but when she said something, it was insightful.”

After graduating from dental school, VanLandingham spent time in the Navy’s officer training command in Newport, R.I., the spokeswoman said.

In a release announcing Zike’s hiring as a naturalist, the Park District of Highland Park said he’d earned a bachelor’s degree in outdoor recreation and park administration from Eastern Kentucky University and worked for seven years at Jefferson Memorial Forest in Kentucky.

Zike, who had no criminal record when hired in Highland Park, began working for the district on Sept. 14 but “voluntarily resigned” on Oct. 16, a Park District spokeswoman said. He gave no reason for his departure and was in good standing when he resigned, the spokeswoman said.

Ben Landingham said he never heard his sister say a bad word about anyone, “even about those who did her wrong.

“You could talk to everyone who ever knew her and nobody would have anything bad to say about her. This all sounds like exaggeration but it was true of Claire,” he said. “This is such a senseless tragedy. She deserved so much better than this.”

Karen Berkowitz is a Pioneer Press reporter.

tgregory@chicagotribune.com