{"id":218199,"date":"2026-04-04T01:50:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T01:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/218199\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T01:50:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T01:50:06","slug":"handmade-memorial-for-murdered-fort-myers-woman-torn-down-lee-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/218199\/","title":{"rendered":"Handmade memorial for murdered Fort Myers woman torn down | Lee County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK)\u2014A memorial honoring 28-year-old Julia Curvo, found dead along Hough Street in Fort Myers more than two months ago, was dismantled this week.<\/p>\n<p>The family discovered the memorial was gone when they arrived to replace the flowers. Mark Curvo, Julia&#8217;s father, made the cross by hand and placed it where his daughter was found.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I made the cross with my own hands, and I wrote what I wrote what was on the cross to Julia, wishing her rest in peace,&#8221; Curvo said. &#8220;It was a very moving experience when we put it all down, when we set the memorial up I read a bible passage to her in front of everybody.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Julia&#8217;s grandmother visited the memorial weekly, bringing fresh flowers to keep her granddaughter&#8217;s memory alive in the community. She stopped by on Wednesday to sit with Julia&#8217;s memory.<\/p>\n<p>By Thursday, everything was gone.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Everything was gone. There was a piece of one of the crosses left in the ground. And you can see where someone has taken a saw of some kind and sawed the cross in half,&#8221; Curvo said.<\/p>\n<p>The lot where the memorial stood is currently vacant. Property records show it is locally managed, but the property manager did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p>The Curvos knew the memorial&#8217;s removal was a possibility. Curvo said it could have been a random act or a decision by the property owner.<\/p>\n<p>Julia&#8217;s killer remains at large. The memorial served as a reminder to the community to help bring answers to the family.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We were leaving the memorial up in hopes that it would stay up as long as it took to find whoever killed Julia,&#8221; Curvo said.<\/p>\n<p>The family is left with more questions during an already difficult time. Curvo said he wishes someone had reached out to them instead of removing the memorial without notice.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We can&#8217;t figure out why someone wouldn&#8217;t have just tried to reach out to us, instead of taking everything,&#8221; Curvo said. &#8220;I know it can&#8217;t compare to the devastation of losing Julia, but it adds to the devastation. And it certainly didn&#8217;t have to happen.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Inside a vase at the memorial was a forever rose Curvo was looking forward to bringing home once his daughter&#8217;s murderer is found. The Fort Myers Police Department and Crimestoppers are looking into the memorial&#8217;s removal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK)\u2014A memorial honoring 28-year-old Julia Curvo, found dead along Hough Street in Fort Myers more&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,99135,28,897,16399,99134,99133,99136,47251],"class_list":{"0":"post-218199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cape-coral","8":"tag-cape-coral","9":"tag-cape-coral-headlines","10":"tag-cape-coral-news","11":"tag-curvos","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-fort-myers","14":"tag-fort-myers-police-department","15":"tag-handmade-memorial","16":"tag-julia-curvo","17":"tag-mark-curvo","18":"tag-property-manager"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}