Thursday, 4:30 PM
Runaway slain in Florida comes home for burial
By David Abel and April Simpson, Globe Staff
The slender girl with long, brown hair and a wide smile loved to have snowball fights, play tag, and trade Jolly Ranchers with her younger brother. A junior at Hyde Park High School, Siugerys Garcia had planned to go to college, but in February, she quit school and moved to Florida to live with her boyfriend.
Sunday, hundreds of friends and relatives crowded into a Roslindale funeral home to mourn Garcia, 17, of Dorchester, who was stabbed and strangled last week at an apartment in Lehigh Acres, Fla. Many wore pins with her picture and the words "El Amor No Debe Doler," love should not hurt.
On April 3, shortly after Garcia died, police arrested her boyfriend, Michael J. Legrand, 19, formerly of Boston, on charges of second-degree murder. They say he stabbed her in the back, strangled her, and wrapped her body in a bedspread and a garbage bag, which he allegedly hid in a closet.
"When she got with him, she totally changed," said Evelyn Paniagua, a cousin from Lynn who attended the wake at the John P. Hearn Funeral Home. "That wasn’t her. It was like a 180. She wanted to spend more time with him than the family."
The two had met about a year ago through a mutual friend, and the family knew Legrand well, said Algerys Garcia, 24, the victim’s sister. He often came to the house and to family gatherings.
Legrand moved to Florida in January, not long after his foster mother died, and Garcia told her family she wanted to join him. On Feb. 7, the week before Garcia’s birthday, her mother woke and found her gone. Her parents filed a missing-person report the same day.
"Basically, she just wanted to be with him, and they wouldn’t listen to my parents concerning their relationship," Algerys Garcia said.
She said her sister took a job at a McDonald’s in Florida.
Legrand, who also dropped out of school, had moved to Florida to be close to one of his foster brothers. "He was really quiet," Algerys Garcia said. "I always thought that he was a good person, even though they were going through so many things with my parents."
No one on Sunday could explain what happened.
At the wake, friends described Garcia, known as "Siu Siu," as a warm girl who loved to joke around, smile, and chat with her many friends. She also enjoyed reggaeton music and singing.
Edward Guerrero, 16, a friend from Roslindale who attended middle school with Garcia, remembered going on field trips with her to the Museum of Fine Arts, sometimes sneaking away from the group to admire the sculptures of animals. Garcia graduated from Rafael Hernandez School in Roxbury in 2004, before attending East Boston High School and then Hyde Park High.
She had "a beautiful smile," Guerrero said. "It made you smile, too. You couldn’t keep a straight face."
Garcia had two older sisters and a younger brother. The family emigrated from the Dominican Republic when she was young.
On Garcia’s MySpace Web page, one of her sisters, Siukey Garcia, wrote: "Take what happened to my sister as a lesson ... Listen to your heart, and if you are in an abusive relationship, then get out before it’s too late."
The funeral will be at The Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Monday at 1 p.m. Garcia will be buried at St. Michael’s Cemetery in Roslindale.
David Abel can be reached at dabel@globe.com. April Simpson can be reached at asimpson@globe.com. Globe correspondent Erin Conroy contributed to this report.
