Valerio, Elizabeth Eunice

SCHENECTADY — Elizabeth Eunice Valerio took her own life on August 7, 2019, her forty-fifth birthday, at her home on Saint Davids Lane, after a long illness and a life overshadowed by her mother’s murder on her fifth birthday and several subsequent family tragedies. Despite this burden, she brought joy into the lives of all who knew her, especially children, with her beauty and the immediacy of her love. She made life worth living for all except herself.

Survivors include her halfsister Yajaira Vera of Atlanta; and her own father, who is incarcerated in Massachusetts, where he is serving a sentence of twenty-five to forty years for his abuse of her as a child. Her last wishes, recorded as she lay dying, included an appeal to the state of New York to continue to deny parole to the only person ever convicted of her mother’s murder, and another to the state of Massachusetts to try to ensure that her father serve his full sentence.

She has been buried next to her mother. A memorial service will be held in the Unitarian Universalist Church, 1221 Wendell Ave., Schenectady, on October 19, at 1:30 p.m.

She felt strongly that both euthanasia and abortion should be free from all condemnation and restriction, because only one person has both all the relevant knowledge and the moral right to make such decisions. She was also a passionate believer in animal rights. Memorial donations may be made to Chimphaven chimphaven.org/aboutus/donate/ or the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust sheldrickwildl ifetrust.org/donate.