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Thanks for posting this, GQ. I also put it in the Greek Life section of GC, but forgot to paste it here.
Teacher's mom recall loving son
BY WIL CRUZ
STAFF WRITER, Staff writer Rocco Parascandola contributed to this story.
December 19, 2004
For 20 years, Carmen Edith Galan de Perez would pass a certain upscale shopping center in Houston and survey it with longing, envisioning the special hairdo she might get at a salon there. But she never went there.
Then, during the Thanksgiving weekend, her son Vidal Perez-Galan visited from New York and took his mother to that very beauty parlor so she could get her hair done in honor of the holiday.
It was their last happy time together. On Thursday night, Perez-Galan, 27, was found fatally shot in his Harlem apartment, a slaying for which police believe robbery was the motive.
Yesterday, Galan de Perez, 61, bereft of her only child, recalled his loving gesture. "I used to always pass that gallery and wanted to go in, but I never did; it always looked so beautiful from the outside," she said in Spanish by telephone from her Texas home. "He told me: 'I can't believe you've never been there.'"
"Later on, he surprised us and took us there," she added, referring to herself and other relatives. "We were so happy."
Perez-Galan, a teacher at the Fordham Leadership Academy in the Bronx since September 2003, was discovered by his roommate, facedown on the floor of his apartment on West 130th Street. Perez-Galan, who was shot three times, was still wearing his coat.
Police said Perez-Galan made some deposits at a nearby bank before withdrawing $40 from an ATM machine. He ran errands before heading home.
Police are looking into the possibility that Perez-Galan was trailed at some point. No arrests had been made as of last night.
"We're just hoping that whoever did this gets caught so we could at least have some closure and move on," said Judy Escobar, a cousin of Perez-Galan, from Houston. "It's not going to bring him back, but at least we can know that someone was held responsible."
In the absence of such answers, Perez-Galan's parents reminisced yesterday about his graduation from Georgetown University, his six-month trip to Russia, and his fluent command of four languages.
A memorial for Perez-Galan is planned at his old school on Wednesday.
Staff writer Rocco Parascandola contributed to this story.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.
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