Friends, family remember Maple Batalia
Posted Oct 8, 2011 12:36:13 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
DELTA (NEWS1130) – Family and friends packed into a Delta funeral home Saturday morning to say goodbye to 19-year-old SFU student Maple Batalia, who was gunned down over a week ago in a parkade at the university’s Surrey campus.
“She was an absolutely beautiful, young girl full of promise. This is totally unexplainable. I still can’t fathom it, I mean, I know the family pretty good and just watching Harry [Batalia] on TV just breaks my heart,” says one man.
Maple’s first grade teacher was also in attendance at the service. Suzanna Yee says she has very vivid memories of the dead teen. “I had lots of naughty kids that year and she was one of the really good kids. She kept me sane.”
Many others who were affiliated with Maple’s acting and modeling career, her SFU classmates, family and friends are still in shock and were unable to speak to the media as they filed into the funeral home.
On Friday, Maple’s father appealed for her killer(s) to come forward and turn themselves in. “This is a disastrous thing that has happened to my daughter. It should never happen to any home in this universe. I pray to all the good souls on this Earth to come forward,” said Harry Batalia.
No arrests have been made and police won’t comment on reports that a jilted lover surrendered in relation to an assault just days before her murder.
However, homicide investigators released two surveillance videos showing a white Dodge Charger, which they say has been identified as the suspect vehicle. They are asking for any witnesses who may have seen the car in the area the night of September 28 to contact investigators.
