A South Bay family that lost a member to gun violence nearly 13 years ago mourned another loss Friday, remembering a Hermosa Beach woman shot to death in an apparent murder-suicide as vibrant, colorful and “everything that any good person would be like.”

A day after Vantha Tho, 35, was killed in her rented room, apparently by a former boyfriend who then took his own life, Tho’s sister and brother tried to make sense of it and the pain that has affected their lives. In 2003, their 21-year-old brother — an aspiring musician —died in a shooting in Long Beach.

“It broke my heart having to think about telling everyone that Vantha is gone,” Tho’s sister, Gloria, said Friday. “Having to reach out to all the corners of the world, I hate it. I do.”

Coroner’s officials on Saturday identified Vantha’s killer as Angel Marquez, 32, of Los Angeles. Family and friends said Marquez was an ex-boyfriend of several years who had been harassing Vantha and breaking into her home.

Homicide detectives said their bodies were found Thursday inside the apartment in the 100 block of Herondo Street shortly after a report of gunshots. A gun was located near the man’s body.

“It came out of nowhere, especially because my brother, he passed away when I was 9,” said Tho’s brother, Alex. “So what are the odds, you know? I can’t wrap my head around it. I still feel like I’m going to see her again.”

Miss Cambodia America

A hairstylist at Evolution Salon in Hermosa Beach, Vantha was the oldest of four siblings in a family of Cambodian refugees who fled the Khmer Rouge regime, which killed 1.7 million people in the 1970s. Vantha was born in a refugee camp in Thailand. The children and their parents eventually made their way to Long Beach and the South Bay.

Vantha, who attended Long Beach schools, had aspirations to become an actress and model, and was named Miss Cambodia America in 1998. She chose not to continue with a beauty pageant career and followed in her mother’s footsteps to become a hairdresser.

Co-workers at the Hermosa Avenue salon remembered Vantha as generous and funny. Her boss, Rodilyn Wooldridge, asked Vantha to join the group at Evolution when she opened the business three years ago.

At the salon Friday, workers spent the day responding to condolences from Vantha’s clients and fielding phone calls from those who didn’t know that she had died.

Wooldridge recalled that, just last weekend, Vantha was on a fishing trip. She had something planned for the following weekend as well.

She was always on the go, friends and cousins said.

Pain from brother’s death

A co-worker recently asked Vantha if she ever would go skydiving, Wooldridge said. Vantha said no, because it would hurt her mother if something happened to her.

Her parents and siblings had experienced such pain.

In October 2003, Vantha’s brother, Vouthy, was killed in a gang-related shooting in Long Beach. An aspiring rapper, Vouthy died alongside a young Marine who had participated in the rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch in Iraq just six months earlier. Vouthy, family members say, was not a gang member. The killings were never solved.

Vantha stood before 400 family members and friends at her brother’s funeral, remembering him as a sweet young man who would do anything for his family.

“That night when he was shot and helpless,” she told mourners, “I wish I had been there to take care of him and return the favor.”

Her sister, Gloria, a Manhattan Beach resident, said part of Vantha’s charismatic personality was born from her brother’s death in 2003.

Aries trip

The surviving siblings enjoyed spending time together. Every year, around Vantha’s birthday, she and Gloria, 30, organized a vacation. They called it their Aries trip because their birthdays were just a week apart. They invited friends to join them in locations in Las Vegas, Miami, Barcelona, and the Hamptons.

Alex said even though he was 14 years younger than Vantha, they were very close. They enjoyed getting sushi together, and spent the Fourth of July with each other in Hermosa Beach.

“She was everything that any good person would be like,” Alex said. “She was very vibrant, very colorful, her energy was just so contagious. Everyone who knew her loved her.”

Family and friends are organizing a candlelight vigil on the corner of Herondo Street and Hermosa Avenue at 7:15 p.m. Saturday. Prayers will be held Saturday and Sunday at the Khemara Buddhikaram Buddhist Temple, 2100 W. Willow St., in Long Beach.

Friends also established a fund to help her family pay funeral expenses. Donations can be made at https://www.gofundme.com/2gxt7b4k.