Natalie M. Classen rarely went out.

In one of the tragic ironies in her murder — one that prosecutors have called another senseless act of gun violence by a teenager — Classen was fatally shot by someone she never met on a northeast Reading street corner last June as she walked home with a group she had been with at a bar.

Classen, 30 was a homebody, according to her loved ones. She just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time

“She was mostly about her animals and staying home and trying to start her businesses,” said her half-sister Niyalee Hansen. “She had an iPad and would write her business goals and dreams on it.”

Natalie M. Classen was fatally shot at age 30 on June 15, 2023, in northeast Reading while walking home with friends from a bar. (COURTESY OF VICTORIA SAINT-LOT)

Classen cultivated a porch garden and used crystals in her meditation.

She dreamed of starting a business to help those with chronic conditions heal using natural remedies.

“She was about her plants and her crystals,” said Hansen, who lives in northern New Jersey. “She made her own toothpaste, soaps and deodorant. She wanted to start a holistic business making her own soap.”

Classen’s fiancé, Victoria Saint-Lot, described her as a breath of fresh air.

“I’ve never believed in love at first sight, but she’s the first person I can say it was definitely love at first sight,” Saint-Lot said. “It was just her vibe. We’re both very spiritual. Her soul was very pure.”

Classen grew up in Hoboken, N.J., about a 2 1/2 -hour drive from Reading, and excelled at sports, especially softball. She and Hansen were placed in foster homes at an early age and were separated for many years but talked every day in recent years, Hansen said.

The only reason Classen was living in Reading, Hansen said, was to try to establish a connection with their biological mother, whose heart was failing. She worked for a time as a cook at Judy’s On Cherry, a fine-dining restaurant downtown.

Classen was preparing to move to Texas to start a new life with her fiancé, who had recently moved there from the New York area.

She only recently started going out on the town because she was feeling lonely and sought the company of others, her half-sister said.

Deadly encounter

Classen was the last person you would expect to become a victim of gun violence, her friends and family say.

After leaving a bar, her group was on North 10th Street approaching Greenwich Street about 2:30 a.m. on June 15, 2023, when, according to police, they crossed paths with Henry O. Mendoza.

Four days earlier, according to investigators, Mendoza, then a few days shy of his 18th birthday, shot a man and his 15-year-old nephew from a moving car as the pair walked from a convenience store at 13th and Greenwich streets.

Mendoza had not yet been arrested in that case when he encountered Classen’s group while in front of his home with a group of males and females in the 1000 block of Greenwich.

After words were exchanged between the two groups, investigators say security camera footage showed Mendoza going into his home and emerging moments later, then walking up to Classen and shooting her in the lower abdomen. He’s then seen running into an alleyway.

The people who were with Classen scattered. She managed to flag down a cab that took her to Reading Hospital, where she died a short time later.

An autopsy determined she died of a single gunshot wound to the pelvis.

In court

On Wednesday, three days shy of the anniversary of her killing, family members and her fiancé traveled from other states to Reading for some closure.

Prosecutors were scheduled to present a plea agreement during a hearing before Berks County Judge Patrick T. Barrett. Under the deal, Mendoza would plead guilty to first- and third-degree murder.

A first-degree murder conviction carries a mandatory life sentence, but the crime occurred when Mendoza was still a juvenile. The maximum sentence he can receive for murder is 35 years, prosecutors said.

The agreement called for a combined sentence of 40 to 80 years in state prison, according to District Attorney John T. Adams.

Mendoza’s demeanor before and during the hearing seemed incongruent with a man who was about to begin serving the next four decades behind bars.

Dressed in navy-blue prison clothes and wearing his hair in cornrows, he seemed cheerful as he sat next to his attorney, Catherine Nadirov, while waiting for his turn before the judge. He smiled periodically as he gazed toward the spectators, including members of his family and, to their disgust, the victim’s.

Then the possible reason for his sunny disposition was revealed.

Nadirov informed Assistant District Attorney Daniel Troy that her client had decided at the last minute not to plead guilty.

Troy told Barrett that any deal that was struck is now off, and the commonwealth will go forward to bring both cases — the murder and the attempted murder for the drive-by shootings — to trial this summer.

Troy said the drive-by shootings could not be combined with the Classen murder case because they are separate crimes and victims.

Barrett advised Mendoza at least three times that he faces the potential, if found guilty, of receiving sentences that would increase his incarceration by decades.

“Do you understand all of that?” the judge finally asked.

“Yes, I do,” Mendoza replied.

“Do you want to go to trial?” the judge asked.

“Yes, I do, your honor,” Mendoza said.

The victim’s family and friends, including former co-worker Jon Owens, who worked as a bartender at Judy’s when Classen was a cook there, left the courtroom in a state of shock.

Hansen said later outside the courthouse, “I think that either he thinks he’s gonna beat it or he wants us to suffer with all of the evidence, including video, that they’ll show at the trial.”