An empty crib, a baby’s blanket, a photo – they’re all Manuel Villot has left of his family.
A day after his girlfriend, Yaritza Santos, and their baby son, Manuel, were cruelly run down on Atlantic Avenue, this father was all alone in his son’s room – preparing to go to the morgue to identify his loved ones.
Santos was the best mother Villot could have ever imagined for his son, but his dream of a happy family was torn apart Wednesday when, cops say, drug-fueled Long Islander John Zappulla went on a hit-and-run rampage in his father’s Jeep.
Zappulla, 25, has been charged with murder in the deaths of Santos, 19, baby Manuel, 11 months, and Santos’ best friend, Nery Mejia, 17.
The two moms were run over as they pushed their strollers across the avenue.
Only Mejia’s 10-month-old son, Ricky, survived.
When the tragedy happened, Santos was making arrangements for little Manny’s first birthday party, on March 30. She wanted to get souvenir ribbons for all the party guests to wear.
Mejia certainly would have been at the party. She was Santos’ closest friend. The two girls had grown up together, lost touch briefly, but then found one another again.
Over the last year, they had become nearly inseparable, said Mejia’s sister Wanda Santana.
Santana married Raoul Santos – Yaritza’s oldest brother – less than a month ago, so she lost a younger sister and a sister-in-law.
“They were really close,” Santana said of the two young women. “They both had their babies around the same time. And they got even closer.”
Family members gathered in the Santos’ Cypress Hills home yesterday and looked through photographs of much happier times: Two women smiling and posing their little boys in snuggly snowsuits, and bare-bottom tub shots.
The photos brought smiles but also tears as the tight-knit extended family struggled to deal with the tragedy.
Santos “wanted to do something with herself,” Santana said.
Relatives said Santos was never a bad kid, but she had been through tough times and hadn’t finished high school.
But all that had turned around recently, Santana said, and Santos had been determined to pass the high-school equivalency exam. She had also planned to be baptized later this month.
“She was a really good mother – a great mother,” Santana said.
It was a quality she shared with her friend Mejia.
“She was young, but she was smart,” Santana said of her sister, who was studying to be a lawyer.
Villot pointed out a picture of his namesake, baby Manuel, in a red knit cap – and said he has pictures of himself as a baby in a similar red cap.
And after that, he could no longer talk. He could only cry.