Juliana was beautiful inside and out, friends recall

“Juliana was born on Picasso’s birthday, so I knew I was getting a masterpiece,” her mother, Patricia Redding, remembers. “She had a beautiful life.”

From a very young age, Juliana radiated beauty. People were drawn to her. Little boys fought over her at day care.

“She had a million friends,” her mother recalls. “She loved her baby dolls. She loved children. She was very girly, very agile and beautiful. And most of all, she had a little brother she absolutely adored.”

As a child, her grandmother would take her to executive board meetings, and she was comfortable in the very adult setting. She wanted to be a businesswoman.

Along with stuffed animals, she collected business cards as a little girl. “Her great-grandpa, Scotty, was an accountant,” Patricia says. “She used to carry around his black leather briefcase.”

She attended St. Cyril of Alexandria School, Orange Grove Middle School and Salpointe Catholic High School. She spent summers as a child at the Tucson Racquet Club, and loved playing basketball and golf. She was smart and athletic, and worked hard.

“She always had a job,” her mom recalls. “She juggled school and work and sports, family and friends.”

She was a Sunday school teacher and a member of the Assisteens, volunteering with the Assistance League of Tucson. She shined at the cotillion.

After graduation, Juliana was ready to fly. She spent her freshman year at Marymount College in Ranchos Palos Verdes, Calif. That year, she signed a contract with CESD Talent Agency in Los Angeles.

To be closer to job opportunities, she transferred to Santa Monica College. Her career was on the rise. She never saw the acceptance letter from California State University-Long Beach, where she was transferring to study communications. It arrived in the mail the week she died.

She had just finished a hair product commercial and a photo session for a music CD. She had another photo shoot scheduled the day after her death, and her first magazine cover shoot was slated for later that week.

The night she died, Juliana had dinner with friend Kelly Duncan. The two met in Tucson when Juliana was a Salpointe student. Duncan had come from California to attend the University of Arizona, and they met at RA Sushi in La Encantada, where they both worked.

Duncan, who was a couple of years older, was like a big sister to Juliana.

After they both moved to Southern California, they saw each other when they could, and texted and talked on the phone nearly every day.

“I loved Juliana, and forever she will be in my heart,” says Duncan, 29. “She was the most amazing, happy person I ever met. There is not a day that I don’t think about her.”

If you knew Juliana, Duncan says, you loved her.

“She loved her friends, she loved her family. She was on the phone all the time, talking to her mom or her dad about a ‘Seinfeld’ episode or something fun. She was such a family girl, such a good girl. Her personality was just as beautiful as she was.”

Duncan said she will never forget her friend.

Jimmy Bradley, general manager at Primativo Wine Bistro in Venice, Calif., hired Juliana on the spot as his hostess when she came in to apply. She was working at the neighborhood bistro at the time of her death.

A painting of Juliana hangs over the hostess station, a tribute to the young woman who was so cherished by co-workers and customers.

“She was pure sweetness,” Bradley recalls.

Juliana knew all the regulars at the busy bistro. As hostess, she was the one to break the bad news to patrons if their seating was running late.

“She was so sweet,” he says, “nobody ever cared.”

She sometimes did goofy stuff — like bringing her beloved pup to work and crashing the restaurant computer system by logging into her MySpace account.

But she was so likable that Bradley didn’t mind. “She was phenomenal,” he says.

Mike Hultquist, Juliana’s golf coach at Salpointe, remembers the day they met. It was her freshman year, and Salpointe had the second-best girls golf team in the state.

The team was set for the season. Tryouts had been held, cuts had been made, and a strong lineup was ready to go.

And then along came Juliana, unaware of how star-studded the school’s team was.

“Are you Coach Mike? I’m on the golf team. Here’s my physical,” he recalls Juliana saying.

She had her clubs with her — lefty clubs.

“I asked, ‘Are you left handed?’ and she said no. Those were the clubs they gave her as a kid and she just started swinging.”

Juliana was a natural. She became part of the talented team that featured five girls who went on to play college golf, including professional golfer Sara Brown. In addition to golf, Juliana ran track and played soccer, and received the Order of the Lance, awarded to senior student-athletes who excel in academics and sports.

“We became really great friends,” said Hultquist, who is also an owner of Lerua’s Fine Mexican Foods. “She was a hoot. She used to call the nuns at Salpointe ‘sistah.’ She had no idea how beautiful she was inside and out.”

If there was ever something bothering her, it was nothing that couldn’t be fixed by a bean and guacamole burrito from Lerua’s, Hultquist said.

“She was a good kid. Never once did this girl not have a smile on her face.”

Jesseca Crissey, 27, met Juliana her first day of kindergarten at St. Cyril’s. It was a friendship that would last a lifetime.

Crissey remembers Juliana as a member of the golf team, doing cartwheels on the golf course. “She made it a lively sport.”

They both moved to California for college, and would see each other whenever they could.

“She was the goofiest person I have ever known, in the best way,” Crissey says. “She had the fullest life because she never cared what anyone thought about her. She lived life in the moment. She was a kind and warm and wonderful person.”

Crissey says Juliana “lived the life she truly wanted.”

“A lot of people never figure that out,” Crissey says. “At the end of the day, she lived the life that we all should. She lived life to the fullest.”