Victims of Illegal Alien Crime
This site details crimes against Americans committed by illegal aliens – the legal and proper term for “undocumented migrants” and remembers the victims. Due to the sheer volume of crimes committed by illegal aliens, only crimes that resulted in death are documented here. However, to get an idea of the magnitude of the “other” crimes committed by illegal aliens along with the fiscal and other impacts to America by illegal aliens, they are documented in:
THE DARK SIDE OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
Congressandimmigration.com_The Dark Side Index
The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration report is about ten years old now but is as relevant as ever. Since the Biden-Harris regime allowed in another 10-15 million illegal aliens, we will see the crimes increasing dramatically. Unfortunately, that includes sexual assaults, human trafficking, and gang rapes whose numbers are off-the-charts – if the LEAs (Law Enforcement Agencies) even tracked and reported crimes committed by foreign nationals, which they don’t.
Documenting “murdered and killed” by illegal aliens takes a lot of time. Here are the stories for the first line of Poster 1. Unfortunately, for the citizens of the United States, I can make many more.
The salient point in all this is that none of these crimes would never have happened if the Federal Government had done its primary job of protecting and defending its citizens from foreign national invaders.
POSTER 1
Jocelyn Nungary, TX
On June 16, 2024, two Venezuelan illegal aliens, Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel and Franklin Pena were arrested and charged by the Houston Police Department for the rape and murder of Jocelyn Nungary, age 12, after she snuck out of the house and disappeared while walking to a nearby convenience store. Police and prosecutors allege that Martinez and Ramos met Nungary near the convenience store and asked her for directions. The suspects then lured Nungary under a bridge where she was tied up, had her pants removed, sexually assaulted and raped for two hours, before finally being strangled to death. They then dumped her body in a creek at the bridge.
The girl’s body was found the next morning. She was nude from the waist down, her hands and feet bound. A spokesperson with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has said that Martinez-Rangel and Pena are “illegally present Venezuelan nationals.”
According to ICE officials, Martinez-Rangel was apprehended at the border near El Paso, Texas, on March 14 by Border Patrol agents. The same day, he was released into the U.S. interior on an order of recognizance with a Notice to Appear (NTA) at a later date before a federal immigration judge. Pena was apprehended by Border Patrol agents near El Paso on May 28 and released into the U.S. interior that day on an order of recognizance with an NTA — just 20 days before Houston police say he helped murder Jocelyn.
As of August, 2024, Pena and Martinez-Rangel are currently being held on a $10M dollar bond each and were placed under U.S. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) holds.
Franklin Pena and Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel
Sources: NOTE: I’ll add the sources after I figure out how to effectively do it.
Rachel Morin, MD
Rachel Morin, 37, a mother of 5, went for a run around 6 p.m. on August 5, 2023 on the Ma & Pa Trail, a pedestrian trail in Bel Air, MD, a quiet and typically safe town about 28 miles northeast of Baltimore. She never returned. Volunteers recovered her body in a drainage culvert the next day. Victor Martinez Hernandez, 23, was arrested in the murder of Rachel Morin. Authorities believe Hernandez was hiding adjacent to the trail where she was walking before he attacked, raped, and killed her. He is charged with first-degree murder and first-degree rape, Harford County Sheriff’s Office said.
The 23-year-old migrant illegally crossed into the United States in February 2023, police announced. Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler said New evidence allegedly links her killer to another crime in Los Angeles. Gahler said a DNA match for Martinez Hernandez was from a Los Angeles attack. “We all suspected that Rachel was not his first victim…It is my understanding that this suspect, this monster, fled to the United States illegally after committing the brutal murder of a young woman in El Salvador a month earlier, in January of 2023.” Police say a DNA match for Martinez Hernandez from a Los Angeles attack in March 2023. “Once in our country, and likely emboldened by his anonymity, he brutally attacked a 9-year-old girl and her mother during a home invasion in March of 2023 in Los Angeles.” Based on forensics, Hernandez was subsequently arrested in Tulsa, OK and charged for the rape and murder of Rachel Morin.
Laken Riley, GA
Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, was killed while going for a run on the University of Georgia campus in late February 2024. Riley was found dead in a wooded area behind a lake near UGA’s intramural fields on Feb. 22 by campus police. A day later, 26-year-old Jose Antonio Ibarra was arrested and charged with her murder. Ibarra is charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, false imprisonment, kidnapping, concealing the death of another and hindering a 911 call. Records show that Ibarra, was an illegal alien from Venezuela. According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Ibarra and his wife entered the United States near El Paso, Texas, in September 2022. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said that Ibarra was arrested in “after unlawfully entering the United States near El Paso, Texas.” At the time of Riley’s murder, Ibarra had other charges posted against him.
Her obituary read “Her smile was extremely infectious, and she spread joy to others everywhere she went…” and added “that she loved nursing and caring for others. Her love for spreading God’s word led her to attend mission trips through the church. Her love for the Lord was exemplified in every aspect of her life.”
As a result of this crime, H.R.7511 – Laken Riley Act – was introduced in the 118th Congress (2023-2024) to require the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to start enforcing immigration law to prevent this kind of crap from happening. As of this writing, the bill has 78 Republican co-sponsors and, shamefully, 0 Democrat co-sponsors.
Jeremy Poou-Caceres, MD
On February 8, 2024 a 2-year-old boy, Jeremy Poou-Caceres was killed and his mother injured in a drug-related shooting in Prince George County, Maryland at the Bedford Station apartments by a MS-13 gang member, and illegal alien from El Salvadore, Nilson Granados-Trejo and 4 other suspects when his mother was taking him out for a walk.
Witnesses told 7 News a group known to sell fentanyl opened fire with an AK-47 on another group that they believed was trying to enter their territory. They said there was a massive shootout and Poou-Caceres and his mother were caught in the cross fire, both being struck by bullets.
Jeremy was pronounced dead at the hospital. His mother is expected to survive.
Nilson Granados-Trejo had initially crossed the southern border as un unaccompanied Alien Child in May 2014. He had been settled in NJ by an individual who claimed to be his father. He was ordered to be deported in 2022 but never was. Granados-Trejo had been arrested twice in Montgomery County for theft but since “theft: was not on the DHS list of serious crimes warranting deportation, again he was not deported, despite ICE detainer requests for his deportation. He was released both times by county corrections officials, the ICE said.
Several others have since been arrested, a 15-year-old male from Takoma Park, a 16-year-old male from Hyattsville, 33-year-old Israel Fuentes Jr. of Lewisdale and 28-year-old Johnny Turcios. The two teens were charged as adults, and Fuentes and Turcious were both denied bond.
The Prince George’s County Police Department has charged Granados-Trejo with first-degree murder, second-degree murder, two counts of first-degree assault, second-degree assault, attempted first-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder for the death of the child Jeremy Poou Cáceres. As of this writing, Nilson Granados-Trejo is still waiting for his day in court.
7News Maryland Bureau Chief Brad Bell recently followed up on a group of ICE detainers in Montgomery County and learned that the County, as a matter of policy, has failed to honor 119 detainer requests for custody and deportation. Two more persons of interest are sought after they were seen on camera fleeing in a 2003 gold Ford Explorer.
“This today was a senseless act of violence that no community should accept, ever,” said Prince George’s County Chief Administrative Officer for Public Safety and Homeland Security Barry Stanton. “I am just so frustrated of the loss of a 3-year-old — a 3-year-old — in our community!”
Molly Tibbetts, IA
The 20 year old sophomore at the University of Iowa went out for a run one afternoon on July 18, 2018 on a rural road outside her hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa, population 1,700. The psychology major, who would have started her junior year that fall, never returned.
Prosecutors said she was found “wearing only socks and a sports bra and that her legs were spread when her body was found.“
Cristhian Bahena Rivera, an illegal alien from Mexico, subsequently confessed to kidnapping, raping, and killing her and then dumping her body in a cornfield
After a lengthy interrogation, Bahena Rivera led authorities to the cornfield where he had buried Tibbetts’ body under leaves and stalks. Only her bright running shoes were visible. An autopsy found she had been stabbed several times.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said it lodged a federal immigration detainer for Rivera after he was arrested on the murder charge.
Cristhian Bahena Riveria was convicted for the murder of Molly Tibbets and sentenced to life in prison. His appeal was denied.
Lauren Bump, TX
Lauren Bump, 24, was a second-year graduate student at Harding University in Arkansas, and was studying to become a physician’s assistant. She had recently completed missionary work in Guatemala and planned on using her degree to help those in need. On December 31, 2013 she was visiting friends in Texas when her body was discovered on a trail in O.P. Schnabel Park. She had been stabbed multiple times.
A woman discovered Bump’s body lying face down on the trail. She provided a description of a suspicious man she saw on the same trail “pacing back and forth.” Police responded to a call about a “suspicious person” whose description matched the man. On Jan. 4, 2014 police in San Antonio arrested Christian Ivan Bautista, 29. Bautista has a long criminal record, with arrests in both California and Texas. KENS 5 reported that the 29-year-old Bautista was arrested for drug possession in 2006 and a few weeks later was charged with illegal entry, according to county records.
Bautista was taken into custody and questioned about his whereabouts at the time of the slaying. Bautista’s roommate was also questioned. He said he gave Bautista a military-style knife as a Christmas gift. When the roommate asked about the knife on New Year’s day, he said Bautista said, “I stuck that (expletive). I cut her up real nice.”
While Bautista was charged with illegally entering this country and spent at least six months in federal custody, there is a great deal of confusion over why he was never deported. Possibly because he was a “Dreamer.”
Christian Ivan Bautista was charged with the murder of the 24-year-old university student. Testifying at the trial, Dr. Rajesh Kannan, Bexar County deputy medical examiner, said Bump had 27 deep stab wounds or cuts to her body. “This was a sadistic, senseless, predatory crime,” Green said. “It saddens me that the last face this beautiful woman saw is the face of evil. He must be held responsible. Find him guilty.”
Batista was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the stabbing death of Lauren Bump.
Melissa and Riordan Powell, CO
A four time-deported, drunk-driving illegal alien, Jose Guadalupe Menjivar-Alas, an illegal alien from El Salvador, caused the December 12, 2023 crash that killed Melissa Powell, 46, and her 16-year-old son, Riordan Powell.
Witnesses told police they observed Menjivar weaving in and out of traffic, crossing double yellow center lines, and driving at least 80 mph in the 40-mph speed zone before hitting the car being driven by Melissa Powell. Melissa Powell died at the scene, while Riordan Powell died later at a nearby hospital.
After the crash, police investigators allege that Menjivar-Alas’s vehicle reeked of alcohol and that there were beer cans and open beer cases with missing beer cans on the floor. When Menjivar-Alas later took a blood-alcohol test, his level was 0.249, which is three times the state’s legal limit.
Menjivar-Alas had four prior convictions in Boulder County, Colorado, for drunk driving from 2007 to 2019, but had only been given a slap on the wrist by a county judge.
Jose Menjivar has been charged with DUI and two counts of vehicular homicide.
ICE officials said that Menjivar-Alas had been deported from the U.S. in June 2009, June 2012, November 2014, and January 2015 before ultimately illegally re-entering again.
On June 7, 2013 illegal alien Jose Luis Aguilar, 36, raped and killed 9-month-old Serenity Reed in Richland, WA. Bottom of Form
Police arrested Aguilar at a Greyhound bus station after he sexually assaulted and beat his girlfriend’s baby daughter to death. Aguilar had access to the baby because he reportedly was the boyfriend of baby Reedy’s mother, Jennifer Reedy, 31.
Benton County prosecutor Andy Miller, told reporters: “It appears that Mr. Aguilar was on his way to flee to Mexico.”
Reedy told police she went to dinner with Aguilar, who had been living with Reedy for about a month. The affidavit said Serenity was acting normal during dinner. After the meal, Reedy left her with Aguilar while she went to do laundry and go to Walmart.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Aguilar fled the Tri-Cities shortly before Jennifer Reedy to find her daughter lying dead in her crib. Aguilar was gone, as was Reedy’s car and money from her purse.
Reedy called 911 at 9:57 a.m. from her house in Richland to report that she found Serenity purple in color and cold to the touch, the affidavit said. Medics found Serenity not breathing and pronounced her dead at the scene. An autopsy performed Saturday by Dr. Carl Wigren, a forensic pathologist from Seattle, showed Serenity died from “abusive head trauma and had a cut and injuries to the girl’s vaginal area, the affidavit said.
Wigren found that the baby suffered at least two separate skull fractures, hemorrhaging around her eyes and bleeding in part of her brain.
Prosecutors moved quickly to file a first-degree manslaughter charge to keep Aguilar from being released from jail. Aguilar was arrested and charged with first-degree manslaughter in the brutal death of 9-month-old Serenity Reedy of Richland, WA, and was being held at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga on $1 million bail.
Jamiel Shaw Jr, CA
Jamiel Shaw, 17, was a talented HS football player, who was being prospected by Rutgers and Stanford universities. In the early evening of March 2, 2008, he was walking home from a nearby mall talking on the phone with his girlfriend. He was just two blocks from home in the Arlington Heights neighborhood when two illegal alien gang members jumped out of a car and confronted Shaw, asking him what gang he belonged because they believed the athlete’s red Spider-Man backpack linked him to an opposing gang. When he did not answer quickly enough, they shot him twice; the first shot in the stomach, causing him to fall to the ground. While he was on the ground with his hands over his head, he was shot through his hands, with the bullet then traveling into his head.
The shooter, Pedro Espinoza, an illegal alien and member of the 18th Street Gang, had just been released from jail that day. Hearing the shots, his father rushed out to find his son bleeding to death in the street. Jamiel Shaw Jr. was rushed to a hospital, where he later died.
The shooter, Pedro Espinoza, 19, , was charged with first-degree murder with special circumstances (a murder committed by a street gang member) in the slaying of Jamiel Shaw. He was convicted on May 9, 2012. The guilty verdict with special circumstances made Espinoza eligible for the death penalty. On May 23, 2012, the jury sentenced Espinoza to death.
Mary Nagle, NY
Herrera then made lewd telephone calls from Mary Nagle’s cell phone to call 30 of her friends and relatives describing how he sexually abused her, threatening them as well.
Herrera, had entered the U.S. in October 2000 on a tourist visa. Police investigators discovered that Herrera had overstayed his visa and had used several variations of his name in recent years and the Rockland Consumer Protection Department Director Terry Grosselfinger said Herrera’s employer, New Jersey-based Coloron Painting, allowed its county license to expire in 2001. The company did not perform a background check on Herrera, who had been living in the country illegally since May 2001 and was wanted on a 2002 warrant.
Ronald Douglas Herrera was convicted of raping and murdering Mary Nagle. The foreman declared Herrera guilty of all 15 felony charges, including first-degree murder, rape, sodomy and sexual abuse in the sexual mutilation of the 42-year-old woman. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
His appeal was denied.
Armstrong family, VA
On March 7, 2004, all four members of the Armstrong family, Edward, 32, Melissa, 26, Brittany, 10, and Edward IV, 6, of Waynesboro, VA were killed by an illegal alien, Nasko Nazov, a native of the Balkan nation of Macedonia, whose tractor-trailer ran into the back of their stopped Saturn and crushed it in between another stopped tractor-trailer truck on Interstate 81
Highway Patrol Trooper McElhaney said that the accident apparently took place after the Armstrongs had slowed down for a crash ahead of them as the traffic had started backing up. A Tennessee World Trucking tractor-trailer, driven by illegal alien Nasko Nazov switched from the left northbound lane to the right northbound lane, striking the rear of a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck. The non-English speaking Nazov then plowed into the back of the Armstrong’s car, crushing it underneath a stopped tractor-trailer truck. Greeneville EMS personnel struggled to reach the victims trapped inside the crushed remains. At first, the rescuers only saw the two adults. It wasn’t until after the back end of the crushed car was pried apart that emergency responders realized the two children had also died, having been burned to death.
Navoz plead guilty to the murder of the Armstrong family. Under a plea agreement, Nazov’s received two-year sentences on each of four reckless homicide charges, to be served concurrently, a two-year sentence on the forgery charge for making false entries in his log book, and a six-month sentence for driving without a valid commercial driver’s license. Effectively, Nazov’s is four years and he is eligible for release on parole after he completes 30 percent of his four-year sentence after recklessly killing four Americans.
Judge Beckner said “I personally cannot imagine the inconceivable agony your family has suffered…” also told the family members that “Nazov likely would not have received more jail time had he been found guilty in a trial. State law, he said, requires multiple reckless homicide sentences to be served concurrently.”
Kate Steinle, CA
On July 1, 2015, 32-year-old Kathryn “Kate” Steinle was shot and killed while walking with her father and a friend along Pier 14 in the Embarcadero district of San Francisco. She was hit in the back by a single bullet. The man who fired the gun, José Inez García Zárate, an illegal alien, said he had found it moments before beneath a bench on which he was sitting, and that when he picked it up the weapon went off. The Sig Sauer pistol has no external safety mechanism to prevent accidental firing of a chambered round.
The shot ricocheted off the concrete deck of the pier and struck the Steinle, who was about 90 feet away. Steinle died two hours later in a hospital.
The gun used by Zárate had been stolen in downtown San Francisco from a Bureau of Land Management ranger’s personal vehicle on June 27, 2015, according to the BLM. The ranger testified at trial that he had left the weapon under the front seat of his personal vehicle while he went to dinner with his family. The car’s window had been broken.
Zárate was quickly arrested and charged with murder. On November 30, 2017 a jury acquitted Zárate of all murder and manslaughter charges. Federal charges were dropped due to lack of evidence. He was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, but that conviction was overturned on appeal on August 30, 2019.
Zárate of Guanajuato, Mexico, is an illegal immigrant who arrived in the U.S. sometime before 1991, the year he was convicted of his first drug charge in Arizona. Subsequently, he had been deported a total of five times, most recently in 2009. He was on probation in Texas at the time of the shooting. Zárate had served numerous jail sentences for the felony reentries. He also had seven felony convictions, although none of them for violent crimes.
Three months before accidently shooting Steinle, at the request of the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department (SFSD) he was arrested again for an outstanding drug warrant. On March 26, 2015, he was transferred to the county jail to face a 20-year-old felony charge of selling and possessing marijuana. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had issued a detainer for García Zárate requesting that he be kept in custody until immigration authorities could pick him up. However, as a sanctuary city, San Francisco’s “Due Process for All” ordinance restricted cooperation with ICE and he was released.
Alison Kundhardt and Tessa Tranchant, VA
In 2007 Alison Kunhardt, 17, was a junior where she was active in theater. She loved her job as cashier, as well as jet skiing, boating and music. 16-year-old Tessa Tranchant’s earned accolades in Irish dance. She was passionate about riding English horses, enjoyed playing guitar, and was an especially accomplished surfer.
On March 30, 2007, the best friends were in a car stopped at an intersection in Virginia Beach, VA, waiting for the red light to change when drunk-driving, illegal alien Alfredo Ramos from Mexico, driving over 70 mph in a 45 mph zone, slammed into the car the two girls were riding in. Tessa died at the scene and Alison was taken to Sentara Virginia Beach Hospital, where she later died in her mother’s arms.
Police say both girls had their seat belts on and Ramos’ blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit for driving in Virginia.
Virginia Beach Police Chief Jake Jacocks said it is not the Virginia Beach Police’s policy to question the immigration status of people they meet except in serious circumstances, such as felonies. He said immigration enforcement is a federal job.
Ramos was earlier arrested in Chesapeake, Virginia for drunk driving. After his arrest for DUI/DWI and, despite knowing he had no social security number, no license, nothing but an illegal ID, Chesapeake Police say they never contacted immigration officials.
On October 29, 2006, a Chesapeake police officer discovered Ramos passed out in the passenger seat of his vehicle. Just two weeks later, on Nov. 13, 2006, Ramos veered over a double yellow line on a two-lane road, heading straight toward the vehicle of a Chesapeake police officer, who then pursued Ramos. When Ramos finally stopped, he blew a 0.14% BAC, almost double the legal limit of 0.08%. He was not deported.
On Aug 14, 2007 Ramos plead guilty to two involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of the two Virginia Beach teens. Alfredo Ramos faces up to 40 years in prison, then, deportation on the two counts. Unfortunately, it is too late for Alison and Tessa.
Annie Cumpston, MD
On March 22, 2003 six-year-old Annie Cumpston of Jarrettsville died after being struck by an illegal alien, hit-and-run driver, Guillermo Diaz-Lopez, while holding her mom’s hand, crossing the street with her family in a crosswalk in downtown Baltimore. The family was in town to see the circus and the tragedy occurred as she and her family were leaving the circus. Diaz-Lopez was driving a truck when it veered into the crosswalk.
Diaz-Lopez had been in the United States illegally for four years doing construction work.
Annie was rushed to John Hopkins Hospital where she died later that evening.
After striking the little girl, Diaz-Lopez drove off. Witness Ryan Jones tried to stop the fleeing driver but became caught on the door of the truck and was dragged for a distance. When Diaz-Lopez was later arrested, he did not have a driver’s license, the tags on the truck were expired and his blood-alcohol level was 0.07 percent, just below the state limit of 0.08.
Diaz-Lopex plead guilty to the counts of vehicular manslaughter and leaving the scene of a fatal accident.
In early October, 2003 Circuit Judge Glynn sentenced Diaz-Lopez to 10 years on the manslaughter count, the maximum allowed by state law, and 5 years on the flight count. He will serve the two sentences concurrently. Under state law, manslaughter requires inmates to serve 25% of their sentence before being eligible for parole. but is eligible for parole in just two and a half years. He is expected to be deported after being released.
Aniceto Armendariz, UT
On Sept. 25, 2005, Aniceto Armendariz, 42, a husband, father of four and Hispanic community leader, was in a pickup truck with his wife Alma, driving home from a church gathering on U.S. 40 near the Jordanelle Reservoir in Utah when two illegal aliens from Mexico, Palaez-Vasquez and his son Cunny Palaez, pulled up next to them in a van and opened fire with a 20-gauge shotgun.
One of the shotgun blasts hit Armendariz in the head and killed him instantly. His wife was injured and narrowly escaped death.
Armendariz was a deacon in the Catholic Church and was involved in several community improvement efforts, especially those that would help other Hispanics and steer young people away from delinquency. “This is a man who was a giant here in many, many ways,” said the Rev. Bob Bussen, who was Armendariz’s priest at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Park City. “He and his family were probably the lead Hispanic leaders for the Wasatch back.” “He was an example to the community to show to the whole world that Mexicans come here not only to make trouble but to make a good life,” Alma Armendariz said.
Prosecutors believe it was a murder-for-hire. They say Armendariz was shot in a revenge killing for someone in jail at the time who thought Armendariz sold him out to police.
The father and son were arrested, convicted, and sentenced to 5-6 years to life in prison for the murder. Neither Pelaez-Vasquez nor Cunny Pelaez have cooperated in naming the person who hired them to kill the Catholic deacon. Pelaez-Vasquez took the secret to the grave as he died in prison in January, 2021.
Pelaez, is not scheduled to have his first parole hearing until 2025. If he is released, he will be handed directly over to I.N.S. who will then deport Cunny Pelaez to Mexico
Marisa Di Nardo, NY
Marisa DiNardo is representing the victims of the 9/11 attack and is the only victim on Poster 1.
On September 11, 2011 Marisa DiNardo, who worked in the North Tower, Tower 1, of the World Trade Center in New York city, was killed by illegal aliens, five al-Qaeda terrorists lead by Mohamed Atta, who flew a hijacked plane, American Airlines Flight 11, into floors 93 through 99 of the building. The resulting fire killed everyone still alive aboard the flight and on and above the floors and resulted in the deaths of more than one thousand people in the top 18 stories of the skyscraper, in addition to causing the demise of numerous others below the floors. This was the start of the 9-11-11 attack that killed Marisa and ultimately 2,976 other people and injured 6,000+ more.
Marisa was a commodities trader at Cantor Fitzgerald. She was known to be determined, aggressive, and passionate about her work, having achieved success in a field traditionally dominated by men.
Only a few hours earlier, Marisa had celebrated her mother’s birthday with her family at Windows on the World at the top of the World Trade Center’s Tower 1. Her brother Harley said “We ordered great wine and food and danced and laughed until 1:30 a.m.” Ester, Marisa’s mother, had commented to Marisa about the beautiful view from the restaurant and Marisa replied, “Mom, I’ve got you on top of the world.” It was late, so Ester suggested that Marisa remain home the following day but true to her work ethic, Marisa was back in Tower 1 for an 8:15 a.m. meeting.
Marisa died in the building the following morning just after 8:46 a.m.
Neither Ms. Barrese, a childhood friend since they both were 8-years-old, nor her brother would have called it a hobby, but Marisa collected angels. “She had a very strong faith in God. She believed in fate and destiny and that sort of thing.” Said Barrese.
About a year later, a policeman called Ester. He asked, “Your daughter’s name was Marisa DiNardo?” She said, “Yes.” He said, “Well, we found her pocketbook.” He told me to go pick it up, and that’s when it really felt that she was not here anymore. Marisa’s pocketbook was the only thing of Marisa’s that survived the fire and collapse of Tower 1.