Molinaro: “… how we lived while we were here.”
POUGHKEEPSIE – Victims of those who have passed away were remembered
at a National Day of Remembrance on the Poughkeepsie waterfront Tuesday.
The event is organized by Family Services Inc., a Poughkeepsie-based organization
that runs a variety of programs at the Family Partnership Center in Poughkeepsie.
National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims was established by the US Congress in 2007 to honor the memory of victims lost to homicide and acknowledges the resulting long-term trauma for families, communities, and the Nation.
Poughkeepsie Mayor Robert Rolison, a retired Town of Poughkeepsie Police
detective and former chairman of the Dutchess County Legislature has been
attending this ceremony for several years and praised it as a way to work
towards healing.
“We are all one,” Rolison said. “As much as there are individuals who want to divide us sometimes, there are so many individuals that unite us. This is a uniting ceremony as difficult and as tragic as the loss of someone at the hands of another is, this unites us as a community.”
The event was led by Family Services CEO Brian Doyle and included remarks by Dutchess County Executive Marcus Molinaro who encouraged people to “not be remembered for how we left here but how we lived while we were here.”
The names of those who were killed in Dutchess County were read. Among them were Katie Filiberti, a teenager from Hyde Park whose murder took quite some time to solve, Vincent Viafore, whose kayaking death was caused by his fiancé, and Patricia and Shawn Wonderely who were killed when a suspect was using his vehicle to evade City of Poughkeepsie Police and broadsided their van, instantly orphaning two young children. Of the Wonderely deaths, Mid-Hudson News reporter Todd Bender, a friend of the couple said “I think of Shawn quite often. The death of Shawn and Patty was senseless yet it is bringing about changes in sentencing laws. While the change won’t bring back my friends, it will provide stronger sentencing for those committing certain crimes.”
