Elba Monroig had been fiercely independent all of her life. And when her diabetes left her confined to a wheelchair and partially blind, that didn’t change.
“She wanted to do everything on her own, and we knew she couldn’t because of her condition, so she would become very stubborn,” said Elba’s youngest sister, Maria Rosario.
Maria did all she could to get help for Elba, including having aides and medical personnel visit on a regular basis, and she was also in contact with the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging.
Elba didn’t like being told what to do, and Maria went back and forth with her sister’s doctors.
“I told them I need help and we need to figure something out,” Maria said. “She used to go to the doctor and fight with them at the doctor’s office. I didn’t know what to do with her. I was trying to help her, but she didn’t want help.”
After living with Maria and her family for three years, Elba decided it was time to leave. She lived with different family members for a few months, then without Maria realizing it, Elba moved back to the house she owned on East Madison Street near Frankford and Allegheny in Kensington.
She was in no condition to do so, Maria said. Plus, even though Elba paid the mortgage faithfully every month, her utility bills went unpaid, so her water and electricity had been cut off.
Elba had nurses coming over to assist her, but then Maria — who was Elba’s emergency contact — received a call in October 2017 that Elba stopped answering her door.
“I ended up going to the house, and that’s when everything happened,” Maria said.
Unbeknownst to Maria, Elba’s neighbor had introduced her to a 47-year-old man who had been recently released from prison and needed a place to stay, so Elba allowed him to rent a room and help with chores.
Things seemed off, and she was shocked by the condition of Elba’s house, which she had kept tidy. The man said he had no idea where Elba was, and he followed Maria and her son as they walked through the house looking for her. After she left, Maria called the police.
Elba was found dead in the basement with injuries consistent with a fatal beating, and the man was arrested for her murder. He was convicted in August of this year and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“I can’t bring my sister back, but I feel relief that he’s off the street so no one else can get hurt,” Maria said.
Elba was born March 3, 1956 in Puerto Rico. She was the oldest of five siblings and Maria, born 16 years after her, was the youngest. Elba came to the mainland United States as a young child and lived in New York and Newark, NJ before Philadelphia. She had a son and raised him on her own after she and her son’s father broke up.
“She was a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful woman,” Maria said. “Her career was being a single mom.”
Maria described her sister as caring and giving and sweet, but one day when Elba was living with Maria and her family, she surprised everyone with her language.
“She never cursed — my nieces never heard her curse and my son never heard her curse and I never heard her curse, but one day she was mad and started cursing,” Maria said. “We looked at her like, ‘Did you just curse?’ And she said, ‘Yeah! I cursed! I cursed!’ and then everybody started laughing because we never would have expected that from her. She was special and we miss her a lot.”
Raquel Mintz, Elba’s niece, described her as loving and stubborn and full of wisdom.
“She used to give me a lot of advice, and she’d tell me what to do and what not to do,” she said. “She was really smart.”
Elba also told Raquel stories about her sister Rachel, Raquel’s mom, who passed away eight years ago. And when she was able-bodied, Elba was eager to help family with whatever they needed.
“Every time we asked her for a favor, she was always there. She never said no,” Raquel said. “She loved her great nieces and she always wanted my oldest daughter to come over. She was always taking pictures, too. She wanted to capture every moment, and she would get duplicates.”
Whenever she’d have visitors, Elba would make sure everyone ate, even if no one was hungry.
Although losing Elba has helped her family become closer and stronger, her death has left a huge void that will always be there.
“It’s nothing we can easily get over because of the way it happened,” Raquel said. “Every time we think about her, we have to think about what happened to her, and it shouldn’t be like that. It caused us a lot of pain and a lot of heartache. We will never be the same since this tragedy happened. We will never be the same again.”
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