The Coral Gables home of two of the helicopter crash victims, Henry Parra and Adam Hlavaty, was burglarized.
Miami Herald
Days after a helicopter crash in Kenya killed seven people — four of them from Miami — the tragedy took a second, ugly turn back home.
The Coral Gables home of two of the victims, Henry Parra, 55, and Adam Hlavaty, 42, was ransacked by burglars.
Parra and Hlavaty had been married since 2017. Parra was co-founder of a Gables-based aviation maintenance software company, Trax USA. Hlavaty founded MRKT Group, a development and design firm.
On Sunday, the couple’s housekeeper reported to police that the house had been broken into. As the Miami Herald reported, the couple’s Range Rover and Porsche were missing, along with artwork, jewelry, electronics and business documents.
It’s difficult to imagine a crueler sequence of events.
Unexpected deaths like these are shocking and hard to comprehend. Family and friends have to make sense of a harsh new reality. There are funeral arrangements to contend with along with the painful process of figuring out what comes next.
Imagine all of that sadness compounded by finding out that someone had entered the home Hlavaty and Parra shared and taken pieces of the life they built together.
It’s unclear if the burglars knew the couple had died in the helicopter crash, but it certainly seems likely that they knew the house was empty. Two arrests have been made in the case, Geybert Alexander Garcia, 40, and Melany Perdomo, 24, at their Miami-Dade home on Tuesday. Police were able to track them down through an app that could locate a stolen computer and the Range Rover, the Herald reported.
A home is supposed to be a refuge. It’s where memories live: family photographs on the walls, artwork or keepsakes collected through the years. It all tells a story of who we are. The objects have a monetary value, but it’s the meaning behind them that no money can replace.
The people who died in the helicopter crash left behind family, friends and colleagues. Their loss is also a loss for Miami, a community where their careers and relationships were part of the community fabric and touched many lives.
In addition to Parra and Hlavaty, Roger Duarte — founder of George Stone Crab and the restaurant chain My Ceviche — was among the victims of the crash. Duarte, who was known in the restaurant industry, leaves behind his wife, Nicole Valls — whose family owns Versailles and La Carreta — and their son.
José Alberto Suárez, who also perished in the crash, spent over two decades in television and held leadership roles at Telemundo 51 in Miami before becoming president and general manager of Telemundo stations in Orlando, Tampa and Fort Myers.
Seven people in all died in the crash. Michele Sensi-Contugi, Ecuador’s intelligence chief, and his wife, Stephany Hollihan, also perished, along with the pilot of the helicopter.
The loss of these individuals is deeply personal to the people who knew and loved them. But Miami as a whole is also the poorer for their absence.
We often talk about crime statistics and police reports — things that have been stolen, their value and any charges filed. But for the families of Parra and Hlavaty, the burglary is a violation on top of a violation, pain on top of pain.
We don’t know yet whether the two people charged in the burglary committed the crime. But we do know that, as terrible as the crash was, whoever looted the Gables home of two of the victims made a tragic situation even worse.
Mary Anna Mancuso is a member of the Miami Herald Editorial Board. Her email: mmancuso@miamiherald.com