Community Corner

Remembering Vinessa: 8 Years After Her Murder, A Family Reflects

The son she left behind is now 13 and attending middle school in Riverhead, her father says.

It’s been exactly eight years since Vinessa Hoera was murdered, but for her father, Tim, a manager at in Westhampton Beach, the sorrow over her death isn’t something that has faded quickly.

"She's always with me, whenever I need her," he said in an interview Sunday, holding up a framed photo of Vinessa that remains in the fish store.

When 23-year-old Vinessa Hoera went missing on February 27, 2004, the Westhampton Beach community and residents from across the East End came together to help, forming search parties and canvassing area woods desperately for signs of the young mother who had disappeared without a trace.

Hoera, who left her job at Cor-J Seafood on a Friday night to go pick up her then 5-year-old son Xaviah from day care in Riverhead never arrived.

The next day, according to reports, her car was found in flames on Squiretown and Old Riverhead Road in Hampton Bays; Hoera was not inside the vehicle. Hours later, the car of a co-worker, Faustino Chavez, was found also on fire in Ronkonkoma. Chavez was badly burned and treated at Stony Brook University Medical Center.

Over a month later, after anguished searches by family, friends, and community members, Hoera's body was found in the woods near in Westhampton.

Chavez, an undocumented immigrant, later confessed to raping and murdering Hoera and accepted a plea bargain. He was sentenced to 22 years to life in prison and after he becomes eligible for parole, will most likely be deported back to his native country of Guatamala, officials say.

Tim Hoera said he has tried not to think about the man who killed his daughter over the past eight years. "I hope he never gets out," Hoera said. "He deserves whatever he gets. Let him suffer."

Instead, Hoera said he focuses on the memories of his daughter, which he said live on in her son, Xaviah, now 13, who spends time with his father and both sets of grandparents and attends school in Riverhead. "He doesn't eat vegetables – and she didn't, either," he said, smiling. "He's very extroverted – he's very open and fun-loving, easygoing. And for that, I'm grateful. I see her in him."

Only recently has Hoera's ex-wife and Vinessa's mother, Donna, begun to tell Xavier about what happened to his mother, but not all the painful details, Hoera said. "There's no reason to," Hoera said. "It was bad enough. I didn't even want to know everything about it."

His daughter, Hoera said, was "happy-go-lucky, very funny." And despite the tragic way in which he died, Hoera said he has found peace. "She always told me she loved me, and I could tell she meant it," he said. "I like to think she was a lot like me, easygoing and very forgiving."

Even though Vinessa is gone, Hoera, who has two other daughters, April and DeAnna, said he feels there was closure, because they expressed their feelings openly, telling each other they loved each other often. "We had a complete relationship," he said. "I don't feel like there was anything missing. So many people never even have the chance to have children. I was very fortunate," he said.


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