Verona mother killed in accident far from forgotten one year later

Time has not diminished the memory of Verona's Megan Villanella, a woman struck and killed by a vehicle while standing on the sidewalk only months away from her due date to give birth to her second child.

Villanella, 34, and her unborn daughter Adaline died March 3, 2017. A year later, her many loved ones carry her memory with them every day.

"Meg was extremely special," her husband Jim Villanella said, days before the anniversary of his wife's death. "She was special. She was unique. She was a lot of different things to a lot of people. She was fantastic at her job. She was a great athlete and a great wife."

She was an exceptional mother as well, he continued. Jim Villanella and his daughter Isabelle, soon to be 3, live together at the Howard Street home they shared with Megan. Along with her brother Derek, Megan Villanella was waiting at a bus stop on Lakeside Avenue when they were hit by a white Mitsubushi. Derek Longo has since made nearly a full recovery.

"Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it happened," Jim Villanella said. "It still doesn’t feel real. When we last spoke it was a year ago but it was all fresh and I couldn’t really process it."

He said he and Isabelle are doing well, but the past year has been challenging.

"It doesn’t get easier," he said. "It gets more difficult and it’s harder. I think it’s more difficult because you realize what you’ve lost, what everyone around you has lost. Isabelle is doing OK. I’m doing OK and overall just when I’m with [my daughter] it’s easier."

Her mother's daughter

Megan spent most of her life in Ivyland, Pennsylvania. She attended Churchville Elementary School and graduated with honors from Council Rock High School in 2000.

She received her undergraduate degree cum laud in 2004 from Lafayette College and her Master of Business Administration in international business and marketing from Fordham University in 2012 with a GPA of 3.895.

Jim and Megan Villanella were married for nine years. They first met by chance at Yankee Stadium while Megan attended her first New York Yankees game. Jim Villanella was always a fan of the Yankees, but Megan and her family preferred the Philadelphia Phillies and did not care for Jim’s favorite team.

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Jim and Megan's father Derek both said Isabelle reminds them of her mother.

"For us it’s reliving what we saw raising our daughter and son," the elder Derek Longo said. "The realization of course is every first that Isabelle does, whatever it is, all those firsts that she’s able to achieve, which I know Megan would just take great joy in and we’d laugh about and just relish those moments, Megan is never going to be able to do that."

Jim Villanella described Isabelle as creative, smart and sassy. Together they play plenty of "make believe" games such as when Jim pretends to grill at Isabelle's playhouse. When she told him more people were coming and Jim said he had to make more imaginary chicken, Isabelle reminded him it's just pretend.

"When I think of Megan I think of Isabelle," he said. "When I think of Isabelle I think of Megan."

As much as Isabelle reminds the family of her mom, Megan's mother Connie Longo hopes it continues.

"What we want for Izzy is that she becomes that mature, confident outgoing kind of woman much like her mother," Longo said. "That’s what we want. We want the best for our granddaughter and those qualities."

Continuing to move forward

Anthony Casale Jr. of Belleville was charged with first-degree death by auto and issued a driving while under the influence summons in Megan Villanella's death. Casale was released from custody in mid-March 2017, indicted that year and now there are a "series of pretrial motions that must be resolved" before the case goes to trial, according to an Essex County Prosecutor's Office spokesperson.

"It’s a long, painful process and it goes extremely slowly," Jim Villanella said. "The most challenging part of this is, it’s challenging to tell Isabelle that her mother died and she’s not coming back, and now Isabelle's asking why and I don’t have an answer. I don’t know myself why she died."

Connie Longo thought back to Adaline.

"Had Adaline been born on March 2, she’d have had a 97 percent chance of living," she said. "On March 3 when Megan was hit, Adaline had no chance."

Megan's brother, Derek, still has shoulder pain following the incident. That day he remembers standing on the sidewalk, looking back at his sister, and then nothing else. Though he was back at work three weeks later, Longo said he barely remembers the months of March through June due to the head injury sustained in the accident.

Longo said he felt let down by the court system.

"I can’t fathom in what world that would be, the consequences of that would not be more severe," he said.

Through it all the family has persevered. Jim Villanella, a 37-year-old Paramus native who works as a digital strategist at Bayer, said he was overwhelmed by the support from family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, people at daycare and more.

"The neighborhood is great and people here are fantastic," he said. "We got along with them beforehand but the way everyone reached out and continued to help was amazing."

He said they're still working through thanking everyone.

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Some of the support came through a GoFundMe that raised nearly $50,000. Some of the money was used to purchase a memorial bench to place at Villanella’s high school softball field in her honor, with the rest as an education fund for Isabelle. The bench is set to debut in April.

Megan Villanella was also remembered at MetLife, her employer. An award for marketing excellence named after her will debut at the company this year, her colleague Cynthia Ko-Baek said. Ko-Baek was Megan's manager and admired her confidence and intellect at work.

"Everything that she touched was golden," Ko-Baek said. "There’s not one day that I don’t think about Megan."

In the past year and those ahead, Jim Villanella said he and Isabelle will go on in a way that Megan would have wanted.

"It’s the two of us but at the same time we have an extension of my family and Meg's family that’s always here and welcome here," he said. "I’m trying to raise Isabelle as if Meg was still here, knowing she’s not so it’s important that everything we would have been doing, we’re still doing a lot of the same things."

Email: jongsma@northjersey.com