May 13--Gloria Santiago's life can be summed up in two words: faith and family.
She sang at her Catholic church. She collected used clothing and distributed it to the poor. With her own health failing, her family said, she tried to care for her mentally ill son.
On Friday, two days before Mother's Day, Santiago's 64-year-old life ended when her 38-year-old son, Rafael Tirado, stabbed her to death in the living room of the brick twin home they shared at 1615 Tilghman St. in Allentown, police said.
Tirado is in Lehigh County Prison without bail on a single count of criminal homicide, court records show.
"It's completely shocking," said Santiago's son-in-law Danny Guadalupe, who is married to Santiago's daughter, also named Gloria.
Guadalupe said Tirado has a long history of mental illness and has been in and out of mental health facilities since he was about 18. Guadalupe said his mother-in-law often pulled Tirado out of mental health facilities so she could take care of him herself.
"Eventually, that's what led to this," he said. "It's just a tragedy that something like this happened."
Neither Allentown police nor the Lehigh County district attorney's office would comment on Tirado's mental health or what led to the slaying.
"Because it's an open case, I can't get into motive," Lehigh County First Assistant District Attorney Steven Luksa said Saturday.
The affidavit of probable cause also does not mention a motive.
Guadalupe, who used to live in Allentown but now resides in North Carolina with his wife, said Santiago's sisters reported that Tirado had been acting stranger than usual lately. They said he had been pacing for days and appeared agitated.
According to neighbors, a man they recognized was seen earlier Friday acting erratically outside his house. They said the man, who they did not identify as Tirado, was playing with a knife and a broom, and at one point attacked a parked motorcycle. The man then ran into the house and two women ran out shortly before the stabbing was reported, neighbors said.
At 4:17 p.m. Allentown police responded to a 911 call for "a domestic with a female stabbed," the affidavit states. When police arrived, a man told officers a woman had been stabbed by her son in the house.
Police knocked on the front door. When they didn't get an answer, they forced their way inside. They shouted for any occupants to identify themselves, and Tirado walked up the basement steps carrying a bloody towel, the affidavit states.
Police detained him and then saw Santiago, suffering from multiple stab wounds, on the floor in the front room, the affidavit states. She was pronounced dead of stab wounds to the body at 6:15 p.m. by the Lehigh County coroner's office.
Luksa said the mother and son were the only ones at the home when police responded.
Tirado, who also goes by Raphael Tirado, was taken into custody Friday night and admitted stabbing his mother in a subsequent interview with detectives, the affidavit states.
Luksa said Tirado was also hurt -- he wouldn't say how -- and needed to be treated at a hospital.
Family members gathered at the home Saturday and tried to make sense of it all.
Guadalupe said his mother-in-law, a native of Puerto Rico, was a very spiritual woman who was devoted to the Catholic Church. He said she sang in a church choir and would collect old clothes from relatives and deliver them to needy people while on vacation to Mexico.
"She'd say, 'Anything you want to throw away, don't throw away,'" Guadalupe said. "She was very talkative and happy. She loved to cook."
Santiago's three sisters had been staying with Santiago and Tirado because Santiago was sick, Guadalupe said.
Santiago was battling leukemia and was awaiting a bone marrow transplant, said Monsignor John J. Grabish of Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Allentown. He said he visited her at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest on Thursday.
"She was really upset," he said. "But by the time I left, she had got to the point she was ... at ease with what was to come."
A day later, she was dead.
Court records show Tirado has served jail time for burglary and retail theft. He's also been convicted of fraudulently obtaining food stamps or assistance and driving with a suspended license. In 1997, he was placed in a program for first-time offenders on a charge of accidents involving damage to a vehicle.
Santiago is survived by three children, including Tirado. Another son, Ronaldo Tirado, an altar boy at Sacred Heart Church and a Dieruff High School freshman died of cancer in 1991 at age 16, according to Guadalupe and Morning Call archives.
610-820-6510
Copyright 2012 - The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.
