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The Unimaginable Loss.

10 images Created 23 Nov 2020

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  • Veronica Ramirez is held by her husband Fernando as she cries at their home in Prunedale, Calif. on July 7, 2016, which would have been her son Nikko Malliarodakis’ 25th birthday, Ramirez and family planted a pine and two spruce saplings where they buried his ashes on that day. <br />
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Malliarodakis was killed in a car crash in Moss Landing on March 21, 2016, after 19-year-old Lynnea Hernandez swerved into oncoming traffic and slammed into a car driven by Malliarodakis. He was headed back to work from his Monterey home after having lunch with his fiancee.
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  • Childhood pictures of Nikko hang at the Ramirez family home.
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  • A family member pats the dirt in one of three pots where Nikko’s ashes were planted during the memorial.
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  • Lynnea Hernandez is wheeled out of Monterey County Superior Coury by her father on May 2, 2016 after pleading not guilty to two counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and two counts of reckless driving causing injury to her passengers. <br />
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Hernandez and six friends, who were on spring break from UC Santa Cruz, were driving to Big Sur,for a few days. Hernandez was driving her Lexus SUV heading south on Highway 1, the friends were seen on Snapchat singing, dancing in their seats and passing a marijuana pipe around in the car, according to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office. At one point, according to the DA, Hernandez was seen looking straight into the camera, taking her eyes off the road. Lillian Scott, a friend of Hernandez’s, was seated in the middle back seat of the SUV. Scott was also killed in the crash. Other passengers in Hernandez’s vehicle (including Hernandez herself) sustained major injuries. <br />
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In January 2018, Hernandez pleaded guilty to two counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence for each person killed and two counts of reckless driving causing injury to her passengers. She was sentenced on March 23, 2018 to six years in state prison.<br />
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“I gave him his first breath and she took away his last,” Veronica Ramirez said through tears while addressing Judge Julie Culver inside Monterey County Superior Court during Hernandez' sentencing in 2018.
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  • Veronica Ramirez is consoled by her husband Fernando as they leave Monterey County Superior Court on May 2, 2016.
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  • Veronica Ramirez’s 10-year-old daughter Bella and her husband Fernando listen to family members speak about Nikko during the memorial in July 2016.
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  • Veronica Ramirez kisses Bella after she sang at Nikko’s memorial. After Nikko’s death, Bella joined a singing group that focused on traditional Mexican folk songs, many of which have lyrics about loss. Ramirez said performing music had been healing for her daughter.
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  • Tree saplings handed out at the memorial were adorned with a copy of a note Nikko wrote his mother when he was a child.
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  • Veronica Ramirez looks at new growth on a 2-foot pine tree in a large pot at her home on March 28, 2018. Her late-son’s ashes were planted underneath three saplings.<br />
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“I am compelled to give my son life again and watch him grow,” she said in 2016 when she first planted the trees. “I pray somehow all his heart and soul spread throughout this Earth.”
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  • Veronica Ramirez, left, smiles at Bella, inside her late-son’s bedroom as the sun goes down on March 28, 2018. <br />
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“Every day I try to watch the sunset in Nikko’s room,” Ramirez says. “Bella prays with me at night. She always asks God to help me with my pain. I feel like I need to heal for Bella, because she sees me suffering. I guess we bounce off each other, because she really helps my husband and I.”
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