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Vigil honors life of strangling victim
Related: Ravenna Realtor murder suspect waives extradition
Realtor Killed
Gallery
Photo
Grant Cooper
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Robert Brooks
By Jeanne Starmack
YOUNGSTOWN
Twenty-five people gathered in the driveway of a half-burned house on the narrow strip of cracked pavement that is Nelson Avenue on the city’s East Side.
It doesn’t feel like the city there. Not far away are Route 616 and Coitsville Township. Around the tended yard at 3660 Nelson and across the street, fall flowers and trees grow wild, obscuring the view of the house from anyone who isn’t right in front of it.
In this isolated spot, Vivian Martin, 67, met her end at the hands, police say, of two men whose motive was robbery.
A real estate agent and city resident, Martin met the men the afternoon of Sept. 20. She thought she’d be showing them the house.
Instead, Martin was strangled, and the house was set on fire. Firefighters found her body in the kitchen.
Those 25 people stood Wednesday evening with flickering tapers, the flames fading against the gray sky, to bring meaning to Martin’s senseless death.
They were her daughters, sister, brothers, nieces, nephews and grandchildren. Some of them wept. Others clutched one another.
The family buried Martin Tuesday. The vigil, organized by Martin’s daughters, Davida Brown of Youngstown and Donna James of Campbell, paid tribute to her life.
“Our purpose is twofold,” began Martin’s brother, the Rev. Raymond Pates of Birmingham, Ala. “To commend her,” he continued, for getting as far in life as she did.
“And to not let it be in vain,” he added.
“The legacy she passed on to us is, ‘you can make it,’ he said. “We cannot allow this to stop us or turn us bitter. Let the death motivate us to do better.”
He remembered his sister as a person who loved her family, saying he would cherish memories of July when he came to Youngstown for a visit.
The Rev. Mr. Pates urged his family to let God into their grieving. “Don’t allow anger you’re feeling to overwhelm you,” he said.
The vigil did seem to bring some comfort. Martin’s daughter Davida Brown said she organized the vigil “to make it seem like my mother — she died for something.”
But any comfort the family felt appeared very much mixed with raw, fresh grief. “We want the death penalty,” Brown said. “A life for a life.”
Robert S. Brooks, 25, of Youngstown and Grant P. Cooper, 21, of Brookfield admitted strangling and robbing Martin, police have said.
“It left us with no closure,” said Martin’s granddaughter, Kysha Martin of Youngstown. “We didn’t get to see her or hold her. We want it to be known — they took someone very important from us.”
Behind a pickup truck parked across the street, Martin’s daughter Donna James was feeling no closure. She just wanted to leave.
James, who is a real estate agent for her mother’s company, Essence, would have shown the house the day her mother was killed, she said. But she had jury duty, so her mother took the appointment.
The killers took $56, she said. “For fifty-six dollars?” she said. “They could have robbed her and then kept going. Why do you gotta kill a person?”
James said her family members, especially those leaving town, seemed to need the vigil.
“But it’s not been a comfort to me,” she said. “I can’t stand being at this house.”