Dark Premonition, Bright Promise Sunday, April 14, 2002   BY BRANDON GRIGGS THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE     In one of her last paintings, Valarie Martinez rendered herself as an angel terrorized by a blood-spattered face. She told her younger brother the painting revealed her own murder.     Little did anyone know how real that horrible prophecy would become.     Weeks later, Martinez was dead -- gunned down March 31 of last year in Big Cottonwood Canyon by a jealous ex-boyfriend who had stalked her for months. He also killed Martinez's new boyfriend before turning the gun on himself.     "Her paintings, I think, are very eerie," says her mother, Dolly Martinez, gazing upon the canvases scattered about her living room. "They tell a story. They tell us that the destiny of her life was death. And that he was the one who was going to do it."     A year after Martinez's death, her creative spirit gets a second life. Some 50 of her paintings and drawings will be shown in public for the first time Friday evening at Display Business in Salt Lake City as part of the city's monthly Gallery Stroll.     Exhibiting her paintings was a longtime goal for the sunny Mexican-American woman whose 4-foot, 11-inch frame seemed too small to hold her big dreams. Like so many young victims of sudden death, Valarie Martinez, 24, was bursting with promise. She worked full-time at a check-printing plant, took classes at Salt Lake Community College and hoped to study medicine at the University of Utah. Somehow, she also found the time for flight lessons. And reading. And photography. And painting.     "Valarie's life was so full," says her mother, who works in customer service at the same check-printing company. "As old as I am now, I don't think I've done half the things she did. She always used to say she was given the gift of life and she had to make the most of it."     "I've never known anyone my whole life who was so interested in learning. And I know a lot of people," says her father, Richard Martinez, a worker at a hazardous waste incinerator in the Great Salt Lake Desert. "She thrived on it. And she was just getting started. She had a lot of plans."         Generous and Good-Natured: The second oldest of four children, Valarie grew up in Price and in Salt Lake City. Her parents divorced when she was in junior high. Her family describes her as a generous person who laughed often, put others before herself and found beauty everywhere, even in the rain. She was 16 when she met Chris Costello, the young man who would disrupt and eventually end her life. Chris was two years older, volatile and persistent. Despite her mother's objections, Valarie began dating him.     The relationship, troubled almost from the start, persisted on and off for seven years. Valarie tried repeatedly to end it, says her mother, only to cave in after Chris threatened to harm her or her family. Finally, two years ago, she found the strength to leave Costello for good. Shortly afterward, Valarie began dating Todd Hedgepeth, 30, one of her co-workers. The two soon fell in love.     But according to Dolly Martinez and police, Costello refused to let go. He followed Valarie's car, made threats, broke into her new Murray apartment. Then, in the early-morning hours of March 31, 2001, he followed her and Hedgepeth up Big Cottonwood Canyon, where they had gone to gaze at the stars.     What happened next is uncertain. But skid marks and damage to the vehicles led investigators to believe Costello chased the couple for several miles back down the twisting canyon before running her red Cavalier off the road about 1 a.m. near the Ledgemere picnic area. He then produced a handgun, shot them both through the windshield and returned to his car, where he killed himself, police concluded.     The ironies surrounding Valarie's death are almost too cruel to contemplate. Later that same day, Dolly had planned to help move Valarie to a new apartment because they both were concerned for her safety. And three weeks earlier, Dolly had taken her daughter shopping for her 24th birthday. Valarie picked out a much-coveted sweater.     "She just thought it was so pretty. She wanted to save it for a special occasion, but she never got the chance," her mother says, pausing to fight back tears. When she speaks again, her voice trembles with emotion. "I cremated her in that sweater."         Finding a Gallery: In the weeks and months that followed, Dolly Martinez refused to believe her precious daughter was gone. Numb with shock and denial, she waited outside many nights for Valarie to come home, or awoke at 3 a.m. to search the apartment for her. Her grief was constant and unbearable.     Seeking a fresh start, Dolly and her 19-year-old son, Richie, moved last fall into the new five-bedroom house they share today in West Valley City. Dolly decorated one of the bedrooms with Valarie's things. "I go in there and feel a little closer to her," she says.     Around the same time Dolly began looking for a public place to display Valarie's artwork, but every gallery she spoke to turned her down. Then she found Derek Dyer, a Salt Lake City graphic designer who organizes occasional art shows. Dyer took one look at Valarie's artwork and put Dolly in touch with Nell Raymond, who runs Display Business with her husband. Theirs is a printing business, not an art gallery, but each month the Raymonds host an exhibit by an unheralded Utah artist.     "I've never had a show like this before," says Nell Raymond, who was immediately struck by the story behind Valarie's paintings. "I don't want it to be macabre.     "But for any woman who has ever been stalked -- and I think most women have -- it's the most frightening experience," adds Raymond, who herself was terrorized by a former boyfriend a decade ago. "A woman doesn't typically cry for help unless she really needs it. And those cries should always be taken seriously."     Under Utah law, people can petition for protective orders keeping stalkers away from their homes, schools and workplaces. Stalkers who violate such orders face arrest and prosecution. Stalking is currently a misdemeanor, punishable by up to 12 months in jail. Valarie had called the police about Chris but had yet to seek a protective order against him. Dolly Martinez would like to see Utah's anti-stalking laws toughened and believes publicizing Valarie's story can only help.     "Maybe through her somebody else can be saved," says Dolly, who hopes to establish a fund for families of stalking victims. She also has been asked to speak to incarcerated murderers about the impact of their crimes. While she remains haunted by Valarie's death, Dolly says she feels inspired by her daughter's life. "I want her to live through me, because she had so much to offer. She's my sunshine, every day."         Shadows in Her Art: Today, Valarie's smiling face graces 3,000 postcards distributed throughout Salt Lake City to promote her posthumous art exhibit. Several Utah TV news stations are planning segments on her. In recent weeks, other galleries have shown interest in displaying her art. No longer a faceless statistic, Valarie Dee Martinez has become a community icon whose short life continues to have meaning.     Valarie's artistic style reflects both her cheerful exterior and the fears she harbored in her last years. Alive with bright swirls of color, her abstract paintings suggest a surreal whimsy. But several darker works reveal how frightened she must have been. One depicts Valarie's silhouette framed against a pattern of windowpanes; hidden in one corner is a disembodied eye, watching her. A portrait of Costello, completed before Valarie left him, shows a man with a dark void where his face should be.     "There's always a meaning behind her paintings," says Richie Martinez, who considered his late sister his best friend. "Since her death, it's hard to look at her paintings the same way. I think she knew she was going to die."     Display Business will exhibit Valarie's paintings and drawings on Friday night only. The Martinez family will be there to greet guests and answer questions. Visitors can study the artwork for clues into the psyche of this young woman who seemed to know her life could end at any moment. But they cannot buy them. Dolly cannot bring herself to part with her daughter's paintings, at least not yet.     "I can't sell them," she says. "They're like her children to me. My grandchildren. They're all I have."        Friday Exhibit     The artwork of the late Valarie Martinez will be exhibited Friday from 6 to 9 p.m. at Display Business, 380 W. Pierpont Ave. in Salt Lake City. Her original works will not be for sale, although Display Business will print digital reproductions for a fee. For more information, call 322-1450.             © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on Utah OnLine is copyrighted The Salt Lake Tribune and associated news services. No material may be reproduced or reused without explicit permission from The Salt Lake Tribune.