On a pleasant spring evening on May 3, 2015, 11-year-old Olivia Stoffel, a White female, was enjoying a family outing on the Trestle Trail Bridge in Menasha, Wisconsin. What began as a peaceful bike ride with her parents, Jonathan and Erin Stoffel, and her two younger siblings turned into a scene of unimaginable horror. The family’s path tragically intersected with that of 27-year-old Sergio Daniel Valencia del Toro, who was armed with two handguns and distraught over a recent breakup with
his fiancée.
Without any warning or provocation, Valencia del Toro, who had cycled to the bridge, began firing at the Stoffel family and others at close range. The sudden and random act of violence claimed the lives of Olivia, her 33-year-old father Jonathan, and another man on the bridge, 31-year-old Adam Bentdahl of Appleton. Olivia was shot three times. Her mother, Erin Stoffel, was also shot multiple times but heroically managed to get her two younger children to safety and instructed her son to run for help.
The gunman, Sergio Valencia del Toro, took his own life at the scene, dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Investigators later confirmed that the shooter was upset about his recent relationship issues and had gotten into an argument with his ex-fiancée earlier that day. Because the sole suspect killed himself, no arrests were made in connection with the tragic shooting that cut short the lives of three innocent people, including a young girl whose friend remembered her as kind and a "best friend".
