Jersey City residents paid their respects for a slain Heights mother and her two children at a vigil yesterday, just three days after they were killed in a horrific domestic violence incident that has been deemed a triple homicide.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
The event was organized by Assemblywoman Jessica Ramirez (D-32) and Ward D Councilman Yousef Saleh at the Pershing Field Community Center at 835 Summit Ave., drawing out a crowd of at least 125 people that was standing room only.
Luisa Urbano, 31, Juan Martin Urbano, 9, and Diana Ramirez, 5, were killed after an ex-partner of Luisa’s, Napoleon Romero-Anduray, 31, broke in and fatally stabbed them. As a result, he is facing three counts of murder, along with weapons offenses.
“Regardless of your race, your religion, or your creed, this should anger you. This should really piss you off. Because I’m to the point where every single time Pastor Tami gets that phone call, I cry,” said Rev. Tami Weaver-Henry, the chair of the Jersey City Women’s Advisory Board.
” … If I sound like I’m angry, it’s because I am. I was a daughter of a domestic violence survivor. My mother walked away from my father. It’s the best thing she could have ever done. A man put his hands on me. I put my hands back on him. That’s the last time I was a victim of domestic violence, but there are women out here that don’t have anyone to talk to.”
The Urbano family had over a dozen people in attendance, representatives from women’s advocacy groups, mayoral candidates Jim McGreevey, Bill O’Dea, Joyce Watterman, and James Solomon, and residents from Ward D and beyond.
Ramirez, who specializes in domestic violence cases as of counsel at Jersey City-based law firm D’arcy Johnson Day, reflected on why everyone had decided to gather on a Sunday evening.
“We’re here tonight in sorrow and unity and remembrance. And we hold these candles, not just as a tribute to the lives of Luisa, of Diana, of Juan Martin, but also it’s symbolic. It’s going to serve us as light to the darkness that’s domestic violence,” she exclaimed, noting the candles that the majority of the crowd eventually lit.
“Luisa was a mother. She was a daughter, she was a sister, she was a niece. She deserved to be safe in her home. Juan Martin, Diana, they were just children that deserved better. They had the whole world in front of them. They had a future fill the possibilities, and their lives were taken too soon, stolen by senseless violence. Tonight, we mourn them, but I have to say that mourning is not enough. We also have to honor them by turning our grief into action.”
Saleh echoed some of those sentiments, noting that Urbano didn’t seem to know where to go for help and that was a trend that needs to come to an end immediately.
“Too many times, they don’t know where to go … There are people in this room that are survivors of domestic violence, I know that for a fact,” he noted.
“So, we need to be sure to lend a helping hand, let them bend our ear, ask if everything’s okay, and don’t just take ‘yeah’ or ‘yeah, everything’s okay’ as an answer. We need to be there for each other and that’s why we’re here today.”
During her remarks, Watterman said she felt personally responsible every time she hears about a particularly harrowing domestic violence story just like this one.
“I created a women’s advisory board. I helped Sarah’s Daughters get a location, but I feel like I’m failing when I look across the country and all that women have to go through and we still have not come together on how we can tackle this silent epidemic of domestic violence,” she said.
“We must do better. Amen, I don’t know if we have to get to the point that we pass it out like we pass out. You know, programs when we go to certain neighborhoods that we let people know this is the help that they need.”
The service to honor Luisa, Juan Martin, and Diana Urbana will be held at the Rivera Funeral Home, located at 4543 John F. Kennedy Blvd. in North Bergen, Friday at 3 p.m.
A GoFundMe page to cover the funeral costs has already exceeded the $30,000 goal.
