Tragic end to turbulent romance

<p>Daniel Mooney ended his stormy relationship with Sheyna Douprea last summer and filed a restraining order against the woman.</p><p>But the separation didn't last. By December, the Healdsburg man was planning for them to spend Christmas with his family in Brentwood.</p><p>"I spoke to him on the phone. They were coming down here for Christmas, and he was asking if it was OK for him to bring her and the little girl," said Anne Mooney, Daniel's mother.</p><p>Mooney's family was worried that he was seeing Douprea again because of her alleged history of violence against him. She also has two prior convictions for violence against other men.</p><p>The relationship between Mooney and the woman half his age had become turbulent last summer. In August, Douprea, 23, had apparently broken the front door of Mooney's Healdsburg apartment and thrown rocks through his windows, which he'd reported to police and included in his request for the restraining order, court records show.</p><p>But Anne Mooney wanted to see her son at the holiday, and he assured her the couple were doing better.</p><p>"I had told him they could come," she said.</p><p>But on Dec. 14, police say, during an altercation at the Healdsburg apartment they shared, Douprea stabbed Mooney twice in the neck with a pocketknife.</p><p>Court documents say Douprea's mother called 911 moments after she'd spoken with her daughter that day. The mother said Douprea told her she'd been in an altercation with Mooney and he was dead.</p><p>When officers reached the Mason Street home, she let them in, uninjured but splattered with blood.</p><p>"There was blood on her. There was a lot of blood in the house. There was blood everywhere," Healdsburg Police Sgt. Matt Jenkins said.</p><p>Officers found Mooney, 46, on the floor in his bedroom, dying from his wounds. They found the pocketknife hidden in the apartment, Jenkins said.</p><p>Douprea initially told officers that she'd arrived at his house to find him wounded, applied pressure to the wounds and called 911. She said she tried the emergency line several times but it was busy, according to court documents.</p><p>A bloody towel was found on Mooney's neck and there were "large puddles of blood" near his head, on the bed and in the bathroom, police said in an affidavit that was part of a warrant to search Mooney's apartment. A trail of blood led to a deck and to the kitchen.</p><p>Mooney died shortly afterward at Healdsburg District Hospital. In addition to two stab wounds to his neck, he had bite marks on his arm and left shoulder, police said in the affidavit.</p><p>Douprea later told police she stabbed Mooney twice in the neck with a folding knife "she kept for her protection," according to the affidavit.</p><p>Douprea told officers she showered after stabbing Mooney and put her bloody pants in a hamper.</p><p>Police said they found several prescriptions for Douprea in the apartment, including medications to treat bipolar disorder, manic depression and migraines. They said they found her passport in her car, parked outside the apartment complex.</p><p>Douprea remains in Sonoma County Jail, charged with his death. Her 2-year-old daughter is living with a relative.</p><p>With help from blood-spatter experts, Healdsburg police are hoping to determine precisely what happened in the apartment. "We're still trying to piece that together, how the blood got everywhere and where things started and ended," Jenkins said.</p><p>"We're working on finding out more about who he was, and who she was," the sergeant said.</p><p>Mooney lived in Healdsburg nearly three years. He arrived from elsewhere in the Bay Area to attend an alcohol treatment center, which his mother credits with saving his life.</p><p>"The last three years have been the three most wonderful because he fought that battle and we received back the son that he was," Anne Mooney said.</p><p>She and Daniel Mooney's sister, Katie Cox of Pittsburg, are planning a funeral in Brentwood today.</p><p>It will be their second family funeral this year. Daniel Mooney's father, Richard Mooney, died in the spring. Anne Mooney said she was comforted in knowing her husband had time with Daniel while their son was back on his feet.</p><p>Just over a year ago, Daniel Mooney went to work for Healdsburg Lumber, in the same neighborhood where he lived. He rode his bike to work and enjoyed his job as gate security man, his mother said.</p><p>"He was very outgoing. He had a very good rapport with the customers and seemed to get along well with everybody in the yard," said Greg Meeker, operations manager at the store.</p><p>Mooney loved to cook and had worked for years as a chef in the Bay Area, his mother said. He also was known as a helpful handyman with a teasing sense of humor.</p><p>"He reached out to people and had a very caring way about him," she said. He'd talked recently about going into nursing.</p><p>Mooney met Douprea through a mutual friend late last year. The young woman lived in Windsor and had held several jobs, including temporary employment in The Press Democrat pre-press department.</p><p>But during the summer, the relationship disintegrated. In Mooney's request for a restraining order, filed Aug. 15, he said that five days earlier Douprea had brought her daughter to his apartment and begun obsessively ringing the bell and knocking and yelling through the door.</p><p>"Next she threw rocks through my windows. Next she pounded on my front door so hard that she split the solid wood door approximately 14 inches and broke the deadbolt," he wrote. The damage was so great he couldn't get out through his front door, he said.</p><p>Two days later, she came to the lumber store and waited for him, then followed him home as he rode his bike.</p><p>"She grabbed my bike. She tried to grab me then prevented me from entering my home," he wrote in the request.</p><p>Healdsburg officers came to his home both times, and the restraining order against her was granted Aug. 21. But it was dismissed Sept. 15 when he didn't attempt to make the order permanent, court records showed.</p><p>"We all advised him to renew it," Anne Mooney said.</p><p>During their relationship, Douprea was going through the court process stemming from convictions in 2006 for battery on a spouse and 2007 for battery and grand theft involving another man.</p><p>Last May, county prosecutors reduced the 2007 case to a misdemeanor and she pleaded no contest. Douprea then was ordered to restart a 52-week domestic violence class she'd been ordered to attend following the first conviction.</p><p>Whether she was attending the class wasn't immediately known. Her attorney, Jamie Thistlethwaite, wasn't available this week for comment.</p><p>Douprea was sentenced to three years' probation in 2006 and two years' probation in 2007.</p><p>In October, Mooney told his mother he and Douprea were getting back together.</p><p>"He knew she had some problems, and I think he felt he could help her," Anne Mooney said.</p><p>Anne Mooney said she'd meant to call her son that Sunday, the day he died.</p><p>"I just didn't get to it. I'd talked to him the prior week," Anne Mooney said. At that time, she asked her son about how his relationship with Douprea was going.</p><p>" 'She's doing pretty good. She's behaving herself.' That's the way he put it," his mother said.</p><p>Staff Writer L.A. Carter contributed to this story.</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Randi Rossmann at 521-5412</p><p>or randi.rossmann@</p><p>pressdemocrat.com.</p>