By ABBY SIMONS, Star Tribune
June 9, 2010
The moment she learned about Gladys Ricart's wedding-day murder, Marie Garza knew she wouldn't be able to shake it.
Garza, 31, a St. Paul single mother of two, former nurse and criminal justice student, watched a true-crime show last year featuring the story of Ricart, a New Jersey bride shot to death in 1999 by an ex-boyfriend.
Ricart, 37, was posing for photographs and anticipating her vows when he burst in. It was all caught on tape. Watching a decade later, Garza couldn't ignore the bridesmaids' screams or the crimson stains on the wedding gown of a stranger.
It wasn't just the horror of Ricart's death or that the two share Latina heritage. It was Garza's own memories of her father holding a knife to her mother's throat, and the verbal abuse Garza herself endured later, in a relationship.
Days after the show aired, Garza began steps toward what will be the first Twin Cities Brides March Against Domestic Violence, a spin-off of marches Ricart's family began nearly a decade ago in New York and which continue today.
On Saturday, at least 100 women wearing bridal gowns and men wearing tuxedoes are expected to march the streets of St. Paul to raise awareness of domestic violence and to raise money to fight it. Some who plan to march are abuse survivors; others are relatives of someone killed by an abuser. Many are cops. The Minnesota chapter of the National Latino Peace Officers Association partnered with Garza to make the event happen.
"Gladys' death was so horrific, and it symbolized so much about domestic violence," Garza said. "You enter into a marriage, and it becomes something else, something horrible. Her bloodstained wedding dress became that symbol. If we marched in our clothes, people would look at us and turn away. In these gowns, people will stare a lot longer."
Breaking the cycle
More than a dozen women chat and laugh at a long table at Joseph's Grill in St. Paul. They draw more than a few curious stares as they adjust their wedding gowns and pull back their veils to sip water. It's a Thursday night in early June. The men with them are in black, wearing boutonnieres.
Garza, with a megawatt-smile and strong voice, works the room, handing out "wedding invitations" and explaining the march. More than a few people commit to join in.
Instead of a gown, Garza wears a T-shirt with the words "Liz's Daughter" across her chest. It's the name of the non-profit she formed to honor her late mother, Elizabeth Garza, and organize the march that has attracted a cross-section of supporters.
"I believe in this cause, and I want my daughters to be involved," said Aimee Torres of Inver Grove Heights, a nurse and reserve police officer who said she was raised in a home with abuse.
"It's a painful issue that I still deal with. We've now broken that cycle, and it's important to keep that cycle broken."
Garza is haunted by her own memories, some burned into her brain when she was maybe 5 years old and her alcoholic father was rampaging through the house.
"It's funny, I don't remember my best friend," she said. "I don't remember my favorite color or my kindergarten teacher, but I do remember this bad stuff."
Garza said her mother repeatedly tried to leave her father, who was deported but time and again made his way back. Eventually he disappeared for good, she said. Liz, who later remarried, died of cancer in 1991, when Garza was 12.
Garza said that, later, when she too became a victim of intimidation and verbal abuse, she wished that she could ask Liz why she tolerated her husband's brutality.
Now, she said, "I don't need to know anymore because I understand. It's about the love, and we tend to overlook a lot of things because we care. We're very strong women, but when it comes to us, our hearts get the best of us and we let that one person get the best of us."
There's also a social stigma that comes with familial strife, a stigma that's especially prevalent in Latino communities, Garza said.
"I was embarrassed," she said. "Even now I'm still embarrassed because now people are going to know this about me."
Choosing to celebrate life
On Saturday, Garza will don a wedding gown and join the throng of brides, grooms and uniformed police officers outside Our Lady of Guadalupe church in St. Paul. They'll march 3 miles to the State Capitol, with a reception at Joseph's Grill. There will be wedding cake and a DJ spinning music as the solemn march turns to celebration.
It's what Gladys and Liz would have wanted, she said. "They wouldn't want us to dwell on it," she said. "They wouldn't want us to be sad."
Abby Simons • 612-673-4921
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