Maria Theresa Santillan - Morris Plains, NJ
Maria Theresa Santillan's family called her "Maritess". At 27, as summer began ceding the stage to autumn in early September 2001, she was working in Customer Support at Cantor Fitzgerald in the North Tower of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan and planning her May 2002 wedding to Darren Sasso, her high school sweetheart, at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark. On September 11, 2001, she was at work when the murderous cowards who had hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 shortly after it left from Boston's Logan Airport that morning bound for California flew the jet into the North Tower at 8:46 am.
Maria Santillan was the oldest child of three and the only daughter of Ester Santillan. Speaking about her daughter in the immediate aftermath of her murder, Ester Santillan spoke lovingly of her daughter's smile, remarking that it was the type of smile that lit up any room into which Maria walked. Fifteen years later, Ester still ached from missing that smile. And from missing her daughter - her princess - to whom it belonged.
-AK
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