America is shocked by the case of the 17-year-old expatriate from Rhodes, Maria Nioti, who died tragically with her classmate, Isabella Salas, in New Jersey. The perpetrator, Vincent Batiloro, is accused of deliberately dragging them with his jeep while they were riding an electric bike and immediately left the scene. The also 17-year-old Batiloro was Nioti's ex-boyfriend, who had not accepted the separation and had caused her problems in the past, harassing her systematically. In fact, the Greek-American expatriate had asked the police for help.
HDN Newsroom
A day before he was arrested, the 17-year-old posted a delirious video on YouTube, where he talked about the accident expressing "sincere condolences", but also implying that "there is more history" behind what happened.
According to testimonies, Vincent Batiloro was Maria Nioti's ex-partner and did not accept the separation. She had even sent threatening messages to a boy with whom she was dating after their relationship, while her friends testified that they had seen him for months in his parked car outside her house. The families of the victims are clearly talking about a premeditated crime of passion and not a car accident.
Police charged the teenager with two counts of first-degree murder. Despite his young age, prosecutors are considering trying him as an adult.
Maria Nioti, who was born in Rhodes and grew up in New Jersey, had a dream of pursuing a career in cosmetology. Her funeral will be held at the Holy Church of Agios Demetriou. Isabella Salas was active in theater groups and choirs, with her relatives calling her the "voice of an angel."
The defendant's uncle, a police chief in Westfield, publicly condemned his nephew and expressed his sorrow for the "senseless loss of two lives".
Vincent Batiloro's video, where he appears talking about games and sports before referring to the accident, shocks families and the public, reinforcing the belief that his act was not the result of momentary recklessness, but of a dark plan that had been devised for months.
The description of the grandmother of 17-year-old Maria Nioti, who was a victim of femicide in the USA by a peer, the son of a police director, against whom she had testified and won restrictive measures, is shocking.
The boy was harassing the girl, as a result of which she turned to the police. A few days after the ratification of the restrictive measures, he ambushed her and ran over her in his ferocious jeep, as well as another underage friend of hers who was killed.
The girl's grandmother, speaking to Live News, stated that her granddaughter died in her arms, while she was in such a bad condition that she recognized her by the slippers she was wearing.
"How to be strong, how to be strong when I went and I said to my son, this is our child, our grandchild is this. He did not know it. And I was telling him, my Maria, they will come to help you, but that was in pieces. My Maria, be patient and he opens his mouth twice and says to me, ah, ah and our child died.
"I saw it, I saw it, I first met it dead. He hit it in my house from outside and was pulling it under the car with his bike. He broke his bones, his legs, his spine. His head, you didn't know the child. You didn't know it. And I say to my son, Babis is Maria. ''No, my mom, don't say such things.'' I tell him, I met her, I met my granddaughter by the slippers on the street and his leg, because she was a beautiful little girl and her hair. From there I met him, he didn't know him, because he was pulling it with his face on the cement and his body, he broke it and skinned it."
The juvenile perpetrator is now charged with two counts of intentional homicide. For her grandmother, the arrest of the perpetrator is no consolation.
The family of Maria Niotis spoke publicly for the first time after the crash that killed the two 17-year-old girls, Maria and Isabella Salas, as they rode an e-bike in Cranford Monday evening.
