Stacie Angers, 29, of Worcester, Mass., was rarely without a camera, and if she snapped your picture, no matter how off-the-cuff, you'd get a copy.

"She would hoard them all year long. It would drive us crazy," said her friend, Wendy Grossman, an instructional aide in Auburn, Mass., where Angers grew up. "But if there were five people in the picture, she would make five copies. I don't know how she kept them all straight. But they'd always be there in our Christmas cards."

In their circle of friends, Angers was "the glue" that bound the gang together, Grossman told The Boston Globe. Vivacious and quick-witted, she would organize casual nights out and make plans for more ambitious get-togethers later on.

Angers loved the heavy-metal bands of the 1980s and went to see them as often as she could, Grossman said.

A private investigator, Angers graduated magna cum laude in 1995 from Anna Maria College. Eric Gustafson, a spokesman for the school, said her teachers remembered her as someone "driven to succeed."

Angers was to be married in August 2004 to Michael Wunschel of Worcester, Mass.

"She was like a sister to me," Grossman said. "She was truly someone you could confide in."