Family, friends seek peace after teen's death

Tiffany Galvan had a passion for singing.

She played the guitar at church on Sundays and would sometimes compose her own hymns, her mother said from her home in northeastern Brownsville. Without her bubbly presence, the house is quiet.

“I am never going to forget the brutal way in which my daughter was taken from me,” Maria Esther Galvan said. “I can resign myself to the fact that she is gone, but not to the way she died.”

Galvan was found dead Aug. 25 in a remote area near Benavides Park outside Brownsville, two days after she had celebrated her 17th birthday, the same day she started her senior year at Los Fresnos High School. Investigators say they believe her ex-boyfriend brutally stabbed her 23 times.

As a 16-year-old boy heads to court this week, charged with killing Galvan, the girl’s mother, friends and relatives all say they are trying to cope with the horrifying loss.

A group of counselors stationed themselves in the high school library after Principal Ronnie Rodriguez broke the news of Galvan’s death to the staff and faculty.

Rodriguez said Galvan was a good student who loved to dance.

Myliss Parker, director of Guidance and Counseling for the Los Fresnos school district, served as her counselor in elementary school.

“She was just one of those people you just can’t help being happy with, because she was always happy,” Parker said.

Advocates at a local shelter for women say Galvan’s death has had a big impact on the community, especially because of the violent way she was killed.

The teen years are a time of change, emotionally and physically, said Claudia Cerda, a primary prevention coordinator for the Friendship of Women shelter in Brownsville. A relationship can be additional stress, and teenagers often do not report abuse.

Sometimes, the signs of abuse are hard for teenagers – and their parents – to recognize, she said.

“Always get help, talk about the abuse, if not to your parents, then a counselor or teacher,” Cerda said.

Principal Rodriguez said students slowly are coping and moving ahead with their lives.

“I am very proud of the students and how supportive they have been of the Galvans,” he said.

Yvette Rocha, Galvan’s friend since elementary school, said she and other friends visited the counselors shortly after Tiffany’s death.

“The day after we found out, we went to school and it did not feel the same,” Rocha said. “I was in shock, in denial. I did not want to believe it was true.”

Rocha said Galvan had not talked to her about her boyfriend.

Galvan had once posted pictures herself with the boy on MySpace, a popular social networking site, but later took the photos down.

Galvan’s status updates on Facebook, another popular site, were sad and seemed to be directed at the boy, Rocha said.

A day before she died, Galvan had written publicly on her Facebook page that she was having trouble with an ex-boyfriend.

In previous postings, she had said she was pregnant and believed the boy would soon have to take responsibility as the father.

The autopsy results have not been released yet, but Galvan’s mother said she was not pregnant, though they had been worried that she was.

Rocha, who almost always had lunch with Galvan, said she likes to pretend Tiffany is still around. She and other friends still post messages on her Facebook wall, talking about their day.

Police have released little information about the case.

Maria Esther Galvan said her daughter seemed sad when she broke up with her boyfriend, but her energetic personality did not change.

The mother said she is grateful to detectives at the Cameron County Sheriff’s Department, the chief of police at the Port of Brownsville, and to Juan Sierra, director of the Treviño Funeral Home, for helping her through the trauma of her daughter’s death.

She has been unable to sleep, she said, and certainly has not been able to visit the place where her only daughter was slain. Some day, when she feels stronger, she will go, she said.

Until then, she is relying on the strength of her family and friends to help her through one of the worst things that could happen to a mother.

“My daughter had lots of dreams,” Maria Esther Galvan said. “She will always be in my heart.”