Windsor residents are invited to show solidarity Saturday night with the families who have lost loved ones to violence or are missing.
Lisa Valente and Carolyn Crankshaw are hosting a vigil at 7 p.m. at Senator David A. Croll Park on the corner of Goyeau Street and University Avenue East in downtown Windsor.
Crankshaw herself knows too well the pain and anger the families of victims endure having lost her son, Darrion Moffat a year ago in a shooting on Hall Avenue.
This is the second annual vigil. Last year's event drew about 100 people, and Valente hopes to attract at least as many this year.
She said several speakers are invited, including Rodney Stafford, the father of Tori Stafford who was raped and murdered in April of 2009 by Michael Rafferty and Terri-Lynn McClintic. The family of Autumn Taggart who died in Windsor in June 2018, and Jeff Durham, the former partner of Cassandra Kaake who was seven months pregnant when she at the time of her murder over four years ago.
Also expected to attend, the mother of Jerome Allen's child. He disappeared in October of 2018.
Overall, Windsor had ten violent deaths last year, the most since 1978.
Who were Windsor's murdered in 2018?
- 16-year-old Chance Gauthier's body was found in an alley on Church Street the morning of February 14. He had died of a gunshot wound.
- Leonard Damm, 73, was found in a home on Bloomfield Road when police responded to a report of an injured man on February 18.
- Joe St. Louis was a Lakeshore Fire Department district chief. He died in a home on Daytona Road on March 24.
- Autumn Taggart's nine-year-old son tried to wake her the morning of June 10 in their University Avenue West apartment. The 31-year-old had been sexually assaulted and strangled.
- University of Windsor student Jason Pantlitz-Solomon was fatally shot in the early morning hours of August 27 outside a downtown pizza restaurant. A second arrest was made this week in his murder.
- On September 8, Darrion Moffat was shot to death on Hall Avenue. He was 18-years-old.
- The body of a 37-year-old unidentified man was found a public housing apartment building on University Avenue East. That was September 29.
- A 36-year-old man died after he fell from a second-storey balcony at the Rose Motor Ivy Inn on Howard Avenue October 1.
- Jerson Calero, 25, died after a stabbing on Giles Boulevard East November 1.
- Sara Ann Widholm succumbed to her injuries on December 16. The 76-year-old was beaten in an unprovoked attack on the Gnatchio Trail in October 2017.
"It seems like the outcome of all the trials has been six to seven years. There hasn't been very much for sentencing. It doesn't seem like anyone is taking sentencing seriously," she said, adding, "Nobody seems to be getting justice."
The vigil also seeks to show support for the families of murder victims who often feel abandoned once the funeral and the trial are over.
"People say, 'oh, you know, the trial is over, you must have closure.' No. They don't have closure," said Valente.
Organizers hope to light up the park, so attendees are asked to bring glow sticks.
