NEWARK

— If Iofemi Hightower were still alive, she’d be 26 years old. If she hadn’t been murdered six years ago today, her mother says she’d be back in Newark, helping the city grow.

"She would have been doing something in the community if she had been here and graduated from Delaware State," Shalga Hightower said today at a memorial ceremony not far from where her daughter was killed. "She would have come back home and been doing something in the community, because that’s the type of person she was."

Iofemi was murdered just before midnight on Aug. 4, 2007, in what came to be known as the Newark schoolyard slayings. Her friends Terrance Aeriel, 18, and Dashon Harvey, 20, died beside her. Aeriel’s sister, Natasha Aeriel, then 19, survived.

The unprompted attack on the four college students — all were either attending, accepted to or had graduated from Delaware State — stunned not just Newark, but much of the country. Three were shot in the head, execution style, as they knelt against a wall. Natasha Aeriel and Hightower were slashed repeatedly in the head with a machete before they were shot.

With six men convicted of the crimes and now serving a combined 1,082 years in prison, with a $5 million settlement from the Newark School District and the state of New Jersey secured earlier this year, Shalga Hightower said she is moving on.

That is, in large part, what today’s ceremony was about, held in the Ivy Hill Park Memorial Garden. There were prayers, songs and a dance tribute as about 150 people circled a memorial to the three who died. Tears were shed. Awards were given to prosecutors and detectives who worked on the case.

And there was a candle light tribute, with family members releasing white balloons and monarch butterflies into the warm August air.

"Butterflies represent a new beginning," Shalga Hightower said after the ceremony. "So this is a new beginning for me. It’s the birthing my foundation, a Gift of Love Foundation, in memory of Iofemi, so that her legacy can live on. Today is a not a day of sadness for me, it’s a day of celebration. Because Iofemi was full of life."

Her project is in partnership with Against All Odds, founded by Christine Carter, who organized today’ ceremony. Shalga Hightower reached her on Facebook after seeing her post "you need to package your pain for a purpose greater than yourself."

"How do I do that?" Carter said Shalga Hightower asked. "She said I wanna do this thing, and I just don’t know how."

The two have since grown close, she said. Carter has taken to calling Shalga Hightower "my mama."

"She is the strongest woman I know," Carter said.

A Gift of Love, which is what Iofemi means, will provide education, awareness and a support system for the victims of violent crimes, as well as their families, Shalga Hightower said.

"Just being here in the community, for the people to know that a mother knows exactly what you’re going through," she said. "Because I was affected by it, and I’m here to support you, to show you there can be life after the darkness."

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