LOWELL — Graciela Paulino was just 16 when she spoke to The Sun in 2013 and said she felt that violence was the biggest problem faced by Lowell.

“I think if we all work together we can help reduce the violence and make the streets a safer place for everybody,” Paulino said.

Paulino said violence had hurt her friends, and expressed understanding of the far-reaching consequences that violent acts have.

“Everyday somebody is getting hurt and then that affects their loved ones and it’s just a big tragedy on everybody,” Paulino said.

On Thursday, the family of a 34-year-old Peabody man experienced such a tragedy, and prosecutors say it was Paulino, now 20-years-old, who fired the bullet that claimed that man’s life.

That man, Marc Devoe, had turned his life around, family and friends said on Friday. He was a construction worker at the future Thorndike Exchange next to the Gallagher Intermodal Terminal in Lowell.

The mother of Devoe’s best friend was crying as she answered the phone Friday evening.

“He was a good kid,” Patty Martello said. “His life was going in the right direction. He had finally met a nice girl. Everybody was proud of him.

“Just heartbreaking,” she added.

Devoe worked for Excel Mechanical Inc., a mechanical contracting firm that specializes in conventional heating and cooling. The company based in Somerville is a subcontractor for the Thorndike Exchange project.

When The Sun called Excel Mechanical Friday afternoon, the person who answered the phone said, “No comment,” and hung up.

Devoe had previously faced a near-death experience. In 2015, he was stabbed in the neck — “millimeters away from major veins and nerves,” he wrote on Facebook from his hospital bed.

“Thanks every buddy im doing better very sore but I am very lucky to be here millimeters away from not.. Life is Crazy!!!” Devoe wrote to his friends in September 2015.

Martello’s son, Nick, grew up in the same Peabody neighborhood as Devoe.

“He wasn’t the type of kid that goes out to make trouble,” Patty Martello said about Devoe.

“It’s really a tragedy that something like this could happen,” she added. “His poor parents. I feel so bad for them. No parents should have to bury their own child.”

Devoe used to work for Richard Berg, of Pro Mechanical Technologies in Revere.

Before a Sun reporter called him Friday evening, Berg said he was unaware that Devoe died.

“Wow. Wow. Jesus,” Berg said after learning of Devoe’s death. “I can’t believe it.

“That kid had a lot of potential,” he added. “He had a heart.”

Devoe was a gym rat at WOW! Work Out World in Peabody, and a diehard New England Patriots fan.

He would occasionally write inspirational posts on Facebook, such as, “Every day work your hardest at being a better person and helping out others that are in need,” and, “All you can do from your mistakes is learn from it and never make same ones twice.. Better you’re self everyday.”

Paulino finds trouble

What happened to Paulino in the years since 2013 remains murky, though it’s clear the words she spoke on video weren’t a driving force in her life.

Paulino spoke out against such violence while at UTEC in Lowell, where she took part in the workforce development program in 2013 and 2014.

But later in 2014, Paulino stopped showing up at UTEC, according to Executive Director Gregg Croteau.

Croteau said both transitional coaches and streetworkers from UTEC reached out to Paulino to try to get her back into programming. He said they were unsuccessful.

By late 2015, it appears a lot had changed.

Paulino was pulled over for an inspection sticker violation in Lowell’s Back Central neighborhood, and when officers searched the car she was driving prior to towing it, they found a loaded sawed-off shotgun in the trunk as well as marijuana, according to police.

Paulino was charged with possession of a sawed-off shotgun, unlawful possession of ammunition, and possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.

Those charges were dismissed due to lack of prosecution on Jan. 20, 2016, according to court records which do not explain why the case was dropped.

“Based on forensic testing there was insufficient evidence to meet our high burden of proof,” a spokeswoman for the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office said in a statement Friday evening. If convicted, Paulino could have faced years in prison.

And then in June of last year, Paulino landed in handcuffs again after allegedly threatening employees of McDonalds on Bridge Street in Dracut with a realistic-looking BB gun, according to police reports.

Officers were called to the fast food restaurant by both employees and patrons who reported a woman and two men were shooting paint ball guns at trees out back, according to a police report.

Paulino allegedly berated and threatened employees who asked her to leave the property because she was scaring patrons and their children.

“That’s when she pointed the gun at me and said ‘do you want me to shoot you,’ ” a McDonalds employee said, according to a police report.

Police reports say Paulino resisted efforts to detain her at that scene, and began banging her head off the bars of a cell after she was arrested.

It took officers and Trinity EMS personnel about 45 minutes to get Paulino strapped onto a stretcher so she could be taken to the hospital for evaluation afterward; she struggled with and even spit at police and EMTs who tried to help her, according to a police report.

“Ms. Paulino was so combative and violent Officer Gorman assisted Trinity Ambulance by riding inside the ambulance,” according to a police report.

That case against Paulino remains pending, and Judge Stacey Fortes revoked Paulino’s personal recognizance bail in the case on Friday.

On Feb. 13, on her often-profane Twitter profile, Paulino tweeted “Trynna be a better person in life but I feel like it’s destroying me.”

Two days later, she allegedly shot a man dead.

Paulino faces life in prison with no chance of parole if convicted of first degree murder.

Follow Robert Mills on Twitter @Robert_Mills. Follow Rick Sobey on Twitter @rsobeyLSun.