JAMES PRESTON doesn’t want anyone – not even himself – talking about his fiance.
The mere mention of the name of Gladys Ricart, the bride who was gunned down just hours before they were to wed, sends his heart racing.
“It’s just too upsetting for him,” said Ricart’s second cousin, Denise Martinez, sadly. She described the powerful impact of Sunday night’s tragic killing.
What makes matters worse for the family are media reports disparaging his woman.
So Martinez, 63, is doing all the talking, speaking on behalf of the grieving would-be bridegroom and Ricart’s distraught mother, Anna Rosario. “We need to tell them the truth,” Martinez said.
Preston, who’s been keeping vigil with his fiance’s family in Washington Heights, sat in horror with Rosario before the TV set yesterday.
They listened to news reports suggesting Ricart was “meeting” the gunman, Agustin Garcia, 47, just days before her wedding.
“They want to dishonor her in order to defend this scoundrel,” Martinez said.
Ricart’s sister, Norma Rosario, visibly shaken, said to her cousin: “Tell them. Tell them. He threatened her with a gun three times. He went to her house and he broke her window. Tell them. She spoke to him out of fear. She was scared of him.”
The family says Ricart was diplomatically trying to tell her stalking ex-boyfriend of eight years to leave her alone and get on with his life.
The family is also upset by Garcia’s lawyer’s claim that he opened fire inside his ex-girlfriend’s Ridgefield, N.J., home because the family jumped him.
“He didn’t say a word. He just walked in and started shooting,” said Rosario. “If we didn’t fight him, he would’ve killed the whole family. One bullet even passed by one of my daughters,” Rosario said, slicing her hand across the stomach of a reporter to show how close the bullet zipped.
Garcia’s bullets cut down Ricart as she stood flanked by her son, Davis, and her mother.
Anna Rosario, who flew in from the Dominican Republic for the wedding, was so distraught, she was rushed to the hospital Monday after her ailing heart began to cry for her daughter. She was on medication yesterday to calm her down.
Ricart’s son is in obvious shock. “He doesn’t want to know anything,” Martinez said.
The Ricart family knows Garcia was a well-respected businessman in the Heights’ Dominican community. But the family also knows that Ricart left him because he was cheating on her.
“I told her to leave him,” Norma Rosario said. “He tricked me, we treated him like family. Then we found out that he was a devil dressed up like a gentleman.”
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