Vicki Rios-Martinez (pictured) flips a lock of redish-blond hair away from her face. She glances around, as mothers do, in a park where children are playing. This is Junny Rios-Martinez Park in Cocoa.
“I had to put it all away for a while… I had to concentrate on keeping my family and my marriage together,” she says.
Mrs Martinez talked a bit about the spiritual life she has found – a life which helps her deal with the anger and the grief she has felt since April 18th 1991. That was the day Mark Dean Schwab ended the life of her eleven year-old son, Junny.
Schwab had been released to the community one month earlier, after serving less than half of the eight-year sentence he received for molesting a thirteen year-old boy.
“He saw Junny’s picture in the newspaper and a few days later he contacted us. He said he was a photographer for a surfing magazine. Back then there was no sex offender registry… no warning at all.”
“He brought all these things, T-shirts, caps, shorts. He said these people would sponsor Junny and this was some of the free merchandise he would get from these companies. Junny was all exited.”
Later that week, Schwab picked Junny up at school on a pretext. Two weeks later he told police where the body was.
On May 19th, Mrs. Martinez will present an award to Mark Lunsford, whose daughter Jessie was allegedly murdered by another convicited molester: John Couey.
Called “The Junny”, it represents all the progress that has been made since April 18th 1991. She glances around, as mothers do…