Tara Rogers-Alicea wasn’t just taken from her family, First Assistant Prosecutor Cary Shill pointed out to the judge during her killer’s sentencing Friday.
Her brutal death was made worse when the man who admitted strangling her tried to hide his crime, stuffing his victim’s body into a suitcase and burying it in a wooded area behind the old Shore Mall in Egg Harbor Township.
Steven Stallworth was sentenced to 28 years in prison Friday, the maximum sentence under a plea agreement made just before his trial was to start last month.
In an emotional hearing, Rogers-Alcea's family told Superior Court Judge John Rauh of their loss and how they still struggle with the void left behind and the questions still surrounding the brutality of her death.
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For five months, her family didn’t know where their beloved Tara was, her aunt Robin Delvecchio said as she read a statement.
Her “shallow grave in a suitcase,” as the judge called it, was unearthed by wildlife and found by an off-duty officer hunting there Jan. 5, 2014.
It was the duct tape Stallworth used to make sure the suitcase wouldn’t open that led to the Pleasantville apartment where the killing took place.
Stallworth no longer lived there, but traces of Rogers-Alicea’s blood remained.
Her family doesn’t know when she died. They know that she was strangled. They are haunted by how she may have suffered, Delvecchio said. “We all wish for just one more chance to hear her voice, see her smile, put our arms around her,” her aunt said. “To tell her how very much she is loved and how missed she is. Mr. Stallworth brutally robbed us of these chances.”
The eldest of her three daughters said she finds it hard to watch mother’s comfort their daughters, because she will never again have that, the young woman said in a statement tearfully read by Christine Oslin, the victim’s sister-in-law.
Sona Turner has lost out on being a grandmother as she is forced to take her daughter’s place as mother to the three girls she left behind.
Rogers-Alicea struggled with addiction toward the end of her life.
It is likely what led her and Stallworth to cross paths, Shill said. It’s also why her killer likely thought she wouldn’t be missed, the prosecutor added.
But she was missed, he said. Her family was looking for her.
Even in that darkness of addiction, she remained a source of light to her loved ones, said sister-in-law Nilza Martinez.
“Addiction never changed who Tara was,” she said. “She was still the sweetest, most loving and caring person I had in my life. She was still my best friend.”
Stallworth said “It was an argument and a mistake, a terrible mistake” that led to the killing.
It was“fear not maliciousness” that led him to try to hide what he had done, he said.
“I was scared and that made things worse,” Stallworth said. “Hearing Tara’s children speak and her friends speak, it hurts even worse. Worse than 28 years or whatever years. That’s the worst thing to come out of this situation is knowing that they don’t have a mother any more or a daughter.”
