READING, Pa. – The family of 30-year-old Geraldina Peguero-Mancebo is shattered following the discovery of two bodies — the woman and her 1-year-old son.
“My family [is] devastated. My auntie cannot even eat right now. My grandmother, she cannot even eat either,” said Heinel Medrano Mancebo, a cousin. “They took the person that was the brightest person of our family.”
Now back in the Dominican Republic, three children — ages 13, 10, and 8 —are orphans. The family says two of them and the 1-year-old are the children of Yunior Cabrera-Colon, the man found dead last week in Baer Park in Reading.
“I prayed God, like Jesus, can you please give me the words to tell them, ‘Listen, your family are in heaven right now with your baby brother?'” Medrano Mancebo said. “Whenever we get to heaven, we’re going to meet them.”
The family is raising money through a GoFundMe to bring the bodies home and care for the children.
“The bodies are so deteriorated,” Medrano Mancebo said. “If they bring the body, it’s going to be completely sealed because we cannot even see nothing. It’s too much.”
The discovery was made Friday night when police found the body Peguero-Mancebo in a field near East Huller Street in Ontelaunee Township. The next day, the body of her 1-year-old son, Jeyden Junior Peguero, was found partially submerged in a swampy area.
“This was the devil work; this is not normal,” Medrano Mancebo said. “How can you kill a 1-year-old baby? How do you have the heart?”
Peguero-Mancebo’s family said she had been living in the U.S. for three years and was married to Cabrera-Colon.
“She was loved by so many, she had the biggest heart.” Medrano Mancebo says.
According to authorities, the mom and child were last seen on Friday, Sept. 12, on surveillance video on North Fifth Street getting into Jose Luis Rodriguez’s vehicle. That same man now faces charges after confessing to police that he killed Peguero-Mancebo’s husband, Cabrera-Colon, that same night.
Their family now thinks about what their final moments might have been like.
“She was carrying the baby, and then she found out that she is going to be killed,” Medrano Mancebo said.
The family also thinks about what could have gone through their minds.
“She might have been thinking about her family — the other three children, her mother, the grandmother — because we were all close,” Medrano Mancebo said.
The family says that while they seek justice, they also forgive.
“I honestly send love for my family, but also for the family of the killer, because I know that it was evil work,” Medrano Mancebo said.
Police have not said their cause of death. The Berks County district attorney is scheduled to hold a news conference on Monday, Sept. 29.