Wedding, tears
Just a day before her daughter's wedding, a Brandon woman ferries relatives to her home. But she never makes it. Her family presses on with their plans.
By ABBIE VANSICKLE, S.I. ROSENBAUM, SAUNDRA AMRHEIN, and JANET ZINK
Published April 22, 2006
BRANDON - Cathy Manzano and her mother spent a year getting ready for the wedding. Together, they planned each detail. The 14 pairs of godparents. The Filipino gowns. The Barong Tagalog shirts.
Today she'll be married, honoring traditions important to Emily Manzano.
But afterward, the bride must bury her mother.
Early Friday morning, a 2004 Mercedes-Benz carrying the mother and four family members in town for the wedding collided with a 2003 Dodge Durango at Lumsden Road and Parsons Avenue in Brandon.
Emily Manzano drove. Manzano, 62, of Brandon, Sonia Medders, 58, of Oceanside, Calif., and Juliebeth Olega, 37, of Clifton Heights, Pa., were killed. Medders and Olega were the bride's cousins. Two other family members were injured.
Durango driver Kenneth Stewart, 34, of Lakeland was released Friday evening from Lakeland Regional Medical Center, as was one of his passengers, Tommy Walker, 39, of New York. Anthony Close, 29, also of New York, remained hospitalized.
No charges have been filed. Sheriff's officials were still trying to piece together what happened. Officials said one vehicl e ran a red light, but they had not determined which driver was at fault. There were no skid marks at the scene, indicating neither vehicle braked.
Deputies smelled alcohol on Stewart and took a blood sample for analysis, said sheriff's spokesman J.D. Callaway.
No one answered at Stewart's Lakeland house. His neighbors said they did not know him.
Stewart has been cited in Florida twice for speeding, once for disobeying a traffic sign or device and twice for driving with a suspended or revoked license, according to state records.
Manzano's Florida driving history includes a 1999 crash in which she was not charged and a citation for an expired tag.
Stewart told investigators he got lost on the way to meet someone.
For the Manzano family, it had been a night of greeting relatives at airports on both sides of Tampa Bay.
Wedding guests began to arrive about 5 p.m., flying from Chicago, New York, San Diego, Dallas and Reno, Nev. Cathy Manzano and her parents took turns shuttling people to her Port Tampa home, where the family played mah-jongg and told stories until 2 a.m.
Then it was time to drive guests to the Manzanos' house in Brandon. Cousins, nieces and nephews piled into three cars. You be the leader, Mrs. Manzano said to her husband, Wilfredo, as they left their daughter.
He took the scenic route, Bayshore Boulevard to State Road 60. He drove slowly to keep everyone together.
On U.S. 301, his wife's car pulled up to pass. The people in her car waved to the others, disappearing into the night.
A little while later, about 3 a.m., the husband's car passed a wreck on Parsons Avenue. It had just happened; no ambulances or deputies were there yet. His headlights gleamed off broken glass.
That looks like your wife's car, someone said.
He pushed the thought away. To think it would make it come true.
He kept driving. He had seen people with cell phones emerging from the Durango. Later, he would wish he had stopped.
"I didn't want to believe that it was something we were involved in," he said.
When they got home, his wife wasn't there. They started calling cell phones for the people in her car.
One cousin said: We should go back up to the intersection. We should go back to that accident.
When he returned, the intersection was lit up with ambulances, police cars.
Later, in the hospital, Wilfredo Manzano took his daughter aside.
We need to face life as it is, he said. We need to walk forward.
It was not the first time the path of his daughter's life had been altered by a fatal traffic accident.
A decade ago, Cathy Manzano, now 36, was engaged to another man, T.J. Manning. The couple dated for two years. His family adored her. She called them "Ma" and "Pa."
Then, Manning died in a crash. Afterward, his parents worried she might never date again.
"The three of us went through a tremendous time," said his mother, Roberta Manning. "We have been over the years concerned that she might not go forward."
But five years ago she met Cory Jones . They both worked the midnight shift at a lab for Florida Blood Services. Friends first, they went to hockey games, until finally he told her his feelings.
"She took a little convincing," Jones, 27, said Friday, finding a laugh.
Two years ago, she said yes to a real date.
He took her out for Mexican food and miniature golf on the beach in St. Petersburg.
Last year, Jones bought an engagement ring.
One night, he made her chicken Parmesan at his place. He hadn't even planned to pop the question yet. When he showed her the ring, she said, "Is that for me?"
When she told her mother, the wedding plans began.
"She was more excited than I was," Cathy Manzano said, jokingly comparing the wedding plans to the plot of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
The family had lived in the Tampa area for more than 25 years and had deep roots in the tight-knit Filipino community. Mrs. Manzano worked for Bank of America. Her husband is a community service officer for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.
They were founding members of the Pilipino-American Association of Tampa .
Mrs. Manzano, a bolt of energy in any crowd, helped organize picnics in those early days before the population grew, said Jose Omila, a longtime acquaintance who planned the wedding.
Everyone knew her.
"She was not the silent type, she was the active type," Omila said. "She joined almost everything that was fun. She was the most fun. There was screaming laughter. That was Emily."
She aimed all that energy at the wedding of her only child.
"She wanted all of Tampa to be there," Jones said.
The bride and groom met with Omila at a Chick-fil-A to discuss details. They joked that they needed to find a secret place or else Emily would take over all the plans.
"Your mom is going to dominate the meeting," Omila laughed with the young couple.
Manzano wanted simple. A straight gown with no frills, not something from the Philippines with thousands of pearls.
Still, the wedding would blend modern rituals with traditional ones.
The couple planned to have a ring bearer, a flower girl, three coin bearers and two junior bridesmaids, he said. The ceremony would be a Catholic Mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Ybor City.
But a veil will be placed over the couple, a cord tied around them as a symbol of unity. They will pass each other Spanish gold coins, or aras.
They had planned to dance.
They had planned to honeymoon in Las Vegas and Costa Rica.
Now, the honeymoon must wait and there will be no dancing.
Times researcher Cathy Wos and staff writer Rebecca Catalanello contributed to this report.
THE ACCIDENTAbout 3 a.m. Friday, a 2003 Dodge Durango, westbound on Lumsden Road in Brandon, collided with a 2004 Mercedes C240 sedan, southbound on Parsons Avenue. The crash killed three of five people in the Mercedes, which carried guests for a wedding. Emily Manzano, mother of the bride-to-be, died at the scene, as did her niece Sonia Medders. Niece Juliebeth Olega died later of injuries. Victoria Weaver and Lily Foster were in critical condition Friday night at Tampa General Hospital. Durango driver Kenneth Stewart of Lakeland and passenger Tommy Walker were treated and released from Lakeland Regional Medical Center. Passenger Anthony Close remained hospitalized. No charges were filed but the crash is under investigation.