 "Photo: Photo courtesy of Arielle Harris")
 "Photo: Photo courtesy of Arielle Harris")
Daniel Krippes had a wry sense of humor that often left his friends cracking up — but he also had the sensitivity to deliver comforting words, even when no one else realized they were needed.
“I remember one time, I was having a bad day and I was on the bus. And I didn’t think anybody noticed. But Dan noticed, and he went out of his way to make sure I was OK,” said Elizabeth Demonte, a third-year Loyola law student. “That’s just the type of person he was. He really cared about people, and he was genuine.”
He was also described as a dedicated, intelligent law student who was slated to graduate from Loyola this May. But now, friends and family are mourning the loss of Krippes, who died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound on Jan. 20 at the house where he lived with his parents and younger brother in Buffalo Grove, a northwest suburb of Chicago.
He was the fifth Loyola student to die this academic year, and the second School of Law student to die in the past three months.
Krippes was born at Skokie Valley Hospital on Aug. 15, 1981, in Skokie, Ill., to Edward and Kathleen Krippes. Kathleen said she and her husband had a good relationship with their son and he was especially close with his brother Thomas, who was four years younger. Krippes was an avid fisherman who fell in love with the sport after his father took him fishing when he was just a toddler.
“He started fishing when he was 3-years-old,” Kathleen said. “He became more of a fisherman than his father.”
Krippes grew up in Buffalo Grove and graduated from nearby Stevenson High School, where his mother said he played hockey and had many friends. From Stevenson, he went on to the University of North Dakota where he earned a B.S. in Aerospace Science. He took an aviation law class there in his first year that spurred his interest in law, Kathleen said.
Hockey was one of Krippes’ passions. In fact, it was because of the sport that he met his long-time girlfriend, Arielle Harris, after they played in a pick-up hockey game together one Friday morning at a rink in Vernon Hills, another northwest suburb.
“He loved me so much. He was really supportive; he would do anything for me,” Harris said.
Harris, a classroom counselor at Camelot Schools, and Krippes’ girlfriend of more than four years, said he was a warm and supportive man who would accompany her to games for a girls’ hockey team she used to coach and would give pointers to her players.
“Just from meeting him all the time, [the team] said he was a great, great person,” Harris said. “He didn’t necessarily have to do that, but he wanted to.”
Harris wasn’t the only one to witness her boyfriend’s kind heart.
“He made a lot of friends at Loyola and enjoyed doing so,” Krippes’ mother said. She said her son was “very, very loyal to his friends.”
“Law school’s a pretty cutthroat place, and he never had a discouraging word to say to anyone,” said third-year law student Bridgette Callahan. “He was one of the guys that when you were having a bad day, he would come up to you and make you forget about it.”
Michael Sitrick, also a third-year law student, said Krippes helped classmates ease the demands of being a law student.
“Law school is stressful, and it’s hard and it’s no fun, but it’s nice when you have people who you know are going through the same thing. Dan was always good to blow off some steam with and just laugh and relax,” Sitrick said.
“He would be the one to chime in with something sarcastic and make everybody laugh,” said Melissa Bocker, another third-year law student.
Jaime Sheets, also a law student, described Krippes as a “very mellow guy.”
“When he spoke, he spoke clearly but not slowly, and it was calming,” said Sheets, who recalled that Krippes had an interest in the contract negotiation aspect of sports law and was a member of Loyola’s Sports and Entertainment Law Society.
Like the rest of Krippes’ friends and family, his death caught Sheets off-guard.
“I didn’t even think it was in the realm of possibility,” Sheets said.
While it can’t be said for sure why he took his life, Krippes’ girlfriend said that “he was filling out the bar application and he was just really overwhelmed and was having doubts.”
“It was getting closer to the real world,” Harris said.
School of Law Director of Communications Elisabeth Brookover wrote in an e-mail to the Phoenix that the law school offers students support services they can use if they feel overwhelmed or troubled.
“Members of the School of Law’s administration have an open-door policy and meet regularly with students to provide guidance and support, as well as academic and career counseling,” she wrote.
The Rev. Jerry Overbeck, S.J., chaplain to the law school and the School of Social Work, encouraged anyone looking for help to come forward. He wrote in an e-mail that there are many members of the Loyola community ready and willing to assist those in need.
He also gave advice for any students who might be distressed.
“Ask for what you need — from God, from a couple close peers, from a mentor or two,” Overbeck wrote.
Loyola will hold a memorial service for Daniel Krippes on Feb. 10 at 5:00 p.m. in room 303-304 of the Terry Center on the Water Tower campus.
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