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Maggie Rosales

Friends, family of young victims dedicate memorial to trio

Friends, family and town officials gather to remember Maggie Rosales, Danny Carbajal and Sarah Strobel in Huntington Station on Thursday. Three trees were planted in their honor. Photo by Mary Beth Steenson Kraese

Friends and family of three Huntington Station youths who were killed over the last two years came together on Thursday evening to dedicate trees and a memorial stone in their honor.

The Huntington Town-sponsored memorial ceremony took place at Depot Road Park and featured friends and family of 18-year-old Maggie Rosales, 25-year-old Danny Carbajal and 23-year old Sarah Strobel, as well as a number of community members.

Rosales was found stabbed to death, lying on Lynch Street in Huntington Station last October. Carbajal was shot in the head in July 2014 outside his Huntington Station home. Strobel’s body was found off the side of a path in Froehlich Farm Nature Preserve in October 2013.

Friends, family and town officials gather to remember Maggie Rosales, Danny Carbajal and Sarah Strobel in Huntington Station on Thursday. Three trees were planted in their honor. Photo by Mary Beth Steenson Kraese
Friends, family and town officials gather to remember Maggie Rosales, Danny Carbajal and Sarah Strobel in Huntington Station on Thursday. Three trees were planted in their honor. Photo by Mary Beth Steenson Kraese

Town officials attended the memorial service and offered some words, town spokesman A.J. Carter said on Friday. Many community members took part in the effort, including Kathleen Kufs and Jim McGoldrick, two individuals who organized the event.

“To be honest with you, it was a sad thing that we had to do this, but in a way it brought the community together,” McGoldrick reflected in a phone call on Friday. “And the community is very concerned about our children, and our teenagers especially.”

While there’s still more to do, McGoldrick said “things are getting better” in Huntington Station. He said he got involved in efforts to extinguish crime in the neighborhood after Rosales was found dead in the street in front of his home.

Kufs said she came up with the idea for the memorial a few months ago. She wanted “to have a place for the families and friends of these poor young people who were murdered, a place to go for peace and reflection and for the community to remember that these young lives were lost but not forgotten, and also to shed light on the fact that two of them are still unsolved.”

Police have charged Huntington Station man Adam Saalfield with Rosales’ murder, but the other two victims have not yet seen justice.

“There’s no closure,” McGoldrick said. “Danny and Sarah’s murderers have never been caught. People are very concerned about that.”