Neighbors of a 15-year-old girl found dead in the East River a week after disappearing into the water are worried her devoted mother won’t be able to survive without her beloved daughter by her side.
“Her mom was devastated,” said Christine Vasquez, 35, a resident in the Upper East Side building where the mom and daughter shared an apartment, and who knows them well. “She said that she knows that God’s going to bring her body back.”
“I didn’t know they found her,” Vasquez said Sunday. “I think that’s closure to the mother.”
Graceline Ilogene, 15, went missing shortly after 12 p.m. on May 30 after she had been sitting on the rocks along the shoreline of the East River near the Roosevelt Island Bridge, according to authorities. A friend called 911 when the teen never resurfaced after falling into the water.
Rescue efforts turned into a weeklong recovery mission that ended Saturday after authorities reported they had found Graceline’s body.
The mother and daughter were “inseparable,” according to Vasquez.
”Her daughter was her world. She meant everything to her,” said Vasquez, who sobbed throughout an interview with the Daily News.
“Her mother feels dead without her,” she said.
Graceline was a “very shy, quiet girl,” Vasquez said, adding, however, that “she was so helpful,” once helping Vasquez move a couch.
Rebecca White / New York Daily News
Candles and flowers are seen at a memorial outside Graceline Ilogene’s Manhattan apartment building on Monday. (Rebecca White / New York Daily News)
Graceline would help her mom — a vendor who sells items in front of the McDonald’s on Second Ave, off E. 96th St. in Manhattan, whose name has not been released by authorities — set up and close down shop, and could often been seen sitting quietly next to her mother doing homework while mom was selling, locals said.
Graceline’s mom was full of questions about her daughter’s disappearance, according to Vasquez. “What would bring her to the water? Why was she near the rocks?” Vasquez said the girl’s mom wondered when they spoke about the search.
“She can’t swim,” Vasquez said of the girl, who was wearing a green bathing suit with white flowers when she went missing.
“It’s such a tragedy,” Vasquez added.
“She always with her mother. Always helping her mother,” Janet Johnson, 59, another building resident and neighbor said, echoing others’ concerns. “I don’t know how her mother gonna make it without her daughter!”
Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News
Divers from the FDNY and the NYPD search the waters of the East River on May 30. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
Johnson was also not aware Sunday that Graceline’s body had been found, but said she had been praying for her and her mother. She cried loudly and leaned her head against her door when told the body was recovered. “Oh my God!”
“I heard that she’s missing. I was praying for her,” Johnson said. “I see her all the time, she and her mother. I was just praying.”
Graceline’s mother could not be reached for comment.
Graceline’s body was one of three bodies recovered from the East River the same day. First responders also recovered the bodies of two unidentified men from the East River on Friday.
Meanwhile, NYPD crews are still searching for 17-year-old Brandon Pino, who jumped off the Staten Island Ferry on May 31 after leaving a goodbye note on Instagram.
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