Brother of machete attack victim comforts suspect’s daughters

Victor Ortiz embraced the two weeping daughters of Armando Vergara-Martinez, the man charged with using a machete to try to behead and shear off the hands of Maria Del Carmen Gomez .

It was that savagery in March, Ortiz is convinced, that robbed his 53-year-old sister, once a girlfriend of Vergara-Martinez, of the strength she needed to fight the cancer that killed her last week. Yet Ortiz made sure at her funeral Tuesday that the two distraught young women understood that he would never blame the sins of a father on his children.

"It is not your fault; you did not do it," the 50-year-old Ortiz whispered to the women, who with their mother, an ex-wife of Vergara-Martinez, came forward in a hallway at the Palm Mortuary downtown to express their condolences before the funeral. "Please, do not cry. It's not your fault."

"He abused me, too," moaned Josie Ortiz, no relation to Victor. She was formerly married to the man who authorities say ambushed Gomez last spring in the parking lot of the convenience store where she worked. "God help us."

Vergara-Martinez is in the Clark County Detention Center on a $250,000 bond, awaiting an October trial on charges that include attempted murder and domestic violence.

The funeral for Gomez - she died of ovarian and uterine cancer that spread throughout her body after an August operation - was attended by doctors who treated her. Those who sewed her back together after the machete attack think Gomez tried to cover her head as the attack occurred. The attack left her brain exposed and her hands hanging from her wrists by soft tissue.

Many victims of domestic violence were at the funeral too, including one woman using a walker who had been shot four times by her husband. Another woman had been stabbed 15 times by her husband.

Pictures of Gomez in all stages of recovery from her machete attack sat outside the chapel. Several pictures had this quotation: "If I can't use my hands, I will use my voice."

On at least four occasions before the service, the crying daughters of Vergara-Martinez walked to the casket to talk to Gomez. Once, one of the daughters gently stroked the dead woman's forehead.

"Maria was always so happy," sobbed one of the daughters of the jailed man. "What can I say?"

Though both women readily identified themselves as daughters of Vergara-Martinez, they said they were too embarrassed to reveal their names.

Dr. Carl Williams, the plastic surgeon who managed to save the hands of Gomez, promised during the service to open a foundation in her name dedicated to removing the physical scars of victims of domestic violence. No woman who has been abused in Southern Nevada will have to pay for plastic surgery.

"She did not die in vain," Williams said. "She has brought attention to something that we must stop in Las Vegas."

Before the funeral, Clark County Deputy District Attorney Elana Graham said the trial of Vergara-Martinez will go forward on Oct. 22. She said Gomez "did everything right" when first abused by the man who later ambushed her with a machete.

About two years ago, Gomez called police after Vergara-Martinez attacked her. He spent 41 days in jail on a strangulation charge. Gomez did not re-enter a relationship with him, but Graham noted he was "hellbent on going after her."

In a stirring conclusion to the service in which she spoke in both English and Spanish, Rebeca Ferreira, head of Safe Faith United, a group dedicated to aiding victims of domestic violence, urged victims to no longer suffer in silence.

"We live in a society where we're supposed to keep domestic violence behind closed doors," she shouted. "We're not supposed to talk about it because it's nobody's business. That's wrong. And Maria knew it. ... She died for a reason, to bring attention to the horrible crime of domestic violence."

Ferreira recalled that before Gomez, whose hands were wrapped in thick bandages, was diagnosed with cancer in August, she worked to help others who were victims of domestic violence. Ferreira said she believed that women must speak up loudly or the carnage will continue.

"And what did she say?" Ferreira asked the crowded chapel.

More than 100 people chanted what she had said in English and Spanish.

"If I can't use my hands, I will use my voice. ... If I can't use my hands, I will use my voice. ... If I can't use my hands, I will use my voice."

Contact reporter Paul Harasim at pharasim@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2908.