Greater than 150 mourners gathered Saturday to recollect the mom and her 11-year-old daughter tragically killed in a head-on crash with an allegedly drunk unlawful immigrant driver.
Sobbing and weeping kinfolk and buddies — a lot of them, donning shirts with pictures of Maria Pleitez and little Dayanara Cortes' beaming faces — lined up outdoors the Lakewood Funeral House in Howell to pay their respects at a somber wake.
At one level, a mourner who'd been crying uncontrollably leaned over the 42-year-old mom's open casket, and repeated the phrases “¡Qué fuerte!” (“How horrible” in English) and “Porque?,” the Spanish phrase for “Why?,” time and again.
Amongst these grieving the 2 devastating deaths was Dayanara's father and her good friend, additionally 11, who was injured within the July 26 crash and is recovering.
Pleitez was driving the 2 women to a Wawa to get milkshakes at round 11:20 p.m. in Lakewood when Raul Luna-Perez, 43, slammed his Dodge Durango into the mother's Nissan Sentra, based on native prosecutors.
She was killed immediately, and Dayanara, who was sitting within the entrance passenger seat, died quickly after arriving on the hospital.
Luna-Perez was charged with two counts of vehicular murder and assault by auto.
Expenses could possibly be added as soon as prosecutors obtain the outcomes of an alcohol blood degree check.
The Mexican immigrant, who was within the US illegally, had been arrested twice this spring for DUI in Pink Financial institution, NJ — one thing Pleitez's niece bemoaned on the wake.
Maria del Carmen Pleitez advised The Put up her aunt was a hardworking, cat-loving, doting US citizen who immigrated from El Salvador 24 years in the past.
“She was a contented particular person,” Pleitez, 39, stated. “She would come to a spot, or she would come to our properties, and simply carry happiness. She was by no means offended, by no means unhappy. She all the time had the power to proceed going, and that's what hurts, as a result of the man had two DUIs already.”
Maria Pleitez spent years working within the portray division of Superior Promotional Baggage, a Toms River promotional merchandise provider, the niece stated.
“She was the top of the household,” Maria del Carmen Pleitez stated. “She was citing her two daughters. She had her personal residence, her personal place, and he or she by no means requested her assist for something. We cherished her.”
Pleitez's 16-year-old daughter, who stayed dwelling, is heartbroken, she stated.
“It's so onerous. We nonetheless really feel like we will't digest every little thing. Like, you get up within the morning, you assume it's not true.”
