ALEJANDRO A. ALVAREZ / Staff Photographer
Sisters Tammy Rosario (left) and Natalie Elias cling together in grief near their uncle Angelo Betancourt on North Third Street, where teddy bears, flowers, and candles form a memorial. Rosario's daughter, Gina Marie Rosario, 7, was among the victims.
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Four deaths bring neighborhood closer
"It's safer out back," Boyer said, "but she was sitting out there because it was nice. She said, 'Mom, can I sit outside with Toya?' "
Kaillalah Griffin gave in and sent her daughter to the front steps with Smith and Remedy, who had just figured out walking and was going to have a birthday party this weekend.
Latoya, Boyer said, was thrilled to have a little girl after two boys.
"She just stayed with her baby," Boyer said. "She loved that little girl. She'd be out there with that pink stroller."
Aaliyah had brought a jump rope with her to the steps. As soon as Gina came over, Aaliyah ran back inside and kicked off her worn pink flip-flops, which still lay on Boyer's blue-and-white tile floor yesterday. Aaliyah had just gotten new sandals that tied to her ankles, and thought they would be better to jump in.
She never got the chance.
Boyer, watching television in a front bedroom, heard the impact and bolted.
"By the time we jumped up and got down the steps, it was all over," Boyer said. "It was a mess - the babies were underneath the car."
Inside Boyer's house, four candles glowed in the window. LaTanya Griffin, Kaillalah Griffin's sister and Aaliyah's aunt, placed them there in memory of the dead.
Ted Canada, father of Latoya Smith and grandfather of Aaliyah and Remedy, stood in a light rain, puzzling as yet another tragedy targeted his family.
"It's crazy. It's senseless," said Canada, a bus driver. "They were kids, innocent kids, playing together, and this idiot jumps the curb. I can't find no sense in that."
Canada, a member of the antiviolence group Men United for a Better Philadelphia, lost his son Lamar to murder in 2005. Two years ago, another granddaughter was killed in a traffic accident.
"It hasn't hit me yet," he said of the latest blow. "I'm just . . . the only thing that holds me up is knowing that those babies are in the arms of the Lord."
Porscha Canada, Latoya's sister, wept for the baby they called NeeNee.
"She was gorgeous," Canada said. "Everyone loved her. She was 1. My sister was 22. Pooka was 6 - babies."
Canada said she wasn't about to hate Donta Cradock and Ivan Rodriguez, the men charged with the four murders.
"What's the point of being angry now?" she asked.
Tammy Rosario, clutching a rosary and wearing her brother's hooded sweatshirt, did not feel the same way.
"I want them to pay for what they did. I will never forgive you for this. You killed my child," she said.
Of her daughter Gina, Rosario said: "She was so bright, and now she's gone. She was only 7! I had two beautiful children. Now I just have one."
