Emily Finn, an 18-year-old white woman from West Sayville, New York, was a college freshman at SUNY Oneonta whose life revolved around dance, children, and plans to become a teacher. Friends and family describe her as warm, generous, and deeply woven into the fabric of her community, especially through years spent at the American Ballet Studio in Bayport and working with young children as she prepared for a future in education.
She had recently graduated from Sayville High School and was studying childhood or elementary education with a minor in dance, while maintaining close ties to her hometown and her dance studio.
On the morning of November 26, 2025, Emily went to the Nesconset home of her 17-year-old ex-boyfriend on Shenandoah Boulevard North to return his belongings following a recent breakup. Inside the house, at about 11:10 a.m., the teen allegedly shot her, then turned the gun on himself and shot himself in the face. His parents, who were in the home, called 911 immediately after the gunfire. Responding officers and emergency personnel found Emily fatally wounded; she was pronounced dead at the scene, while the boy was rushed to Stony Brook University Hospital in critical but stable condition. Public records and a gun-violence memorial site list her as having been lost to gun violence in Nesconset on that date.
Police identified the shooter as Emily's former boyfriend, a Nesconset teen who, according to some media reports, is named Austin Lynch. Authorities say the shooting occurred in his family's home and have characterized it as an attempted murder-suicide linked to the breakup. Law-enforcement statements and local reporting indicate there was no prior documented history of domestic incidents or 911 calls involving the couple at that address. The firearm used has been reported as a legally owned shotgun belonging to his household. After being stabilized in the hospital, he was placed under arrest and is expected to be charged with second-degree murder; officials have noted that, because the shooting took place just before his eighteenth birthday, it is still being determined whether he will ultimately be prosecuted as an adult. Investigators, while acknowledging accounts that he was distraught over the end of the relationship, have said that the precise motive remains under investigation, and they emphasize that all charges are accusations until proven in court.
In the days following her death, the Long Island community has been visibly shaken. A GoFundMe campaign organized for her family speaks of the “devastating and senseless loss” and describes how she touched countless lives through her kindness, generosity, and years of mentoring younger dancers. Vigils and tributes have been organized in West Sayville and at the American Ballet Studio, where friends tied pink ribbons—her favorite color—and dedicated performances of *The Nutcracker* and future shows in her memory. Local coverage describes plans for a memorial tree to honor her, as well as visitation hours at a West Sayville funeral home and a church service at St. John's Lutheran Church in Sayville, where mourners have been invited to wear a splash of pink in tribute. As the criminal case moves forward and the suspect awaits arraignment on murder charges, Emily's family, friends, and former classmates are left to grieve a promising young life cut short on the eve of Thanksgiving, and to confront the enduring impact of intimate-partner gun violence in their community.
