Households gathered at Wilshire Park Elementary College Friday night to mourn the jarring lack of third-grade instructor Mayra Jimenez, who prosecutors allege was killed by her firefighter husband at their North Hollywood house.
Many tears had been shed as kids, mother and father and associates remembered “Miss Mayra” — the devoted 46-year-old educator whose violent demise has devastated the Koreatown college neighborhood.
Mayra’s husband, Andrew Jimenez, 45, was arrested Wednesday and charged with homicide Friday, in accordance with the L.A. County district legal professional’s workplace. If convicted as charged, he faces 26 years to life in jail.
The gang on the vigil was so massive it overflowed into the road going through the varsity, the place a pile of flowers and prayer candles had been laid right down to create a memorial for the slain instructor.
Mates, colleague and college students lay flowers for slain instructor Mayra Jimenez at a memorial at Wilshire Park Elementary College on Friday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Occasions)
Sarah McNeill, a detailed good friend of Mayra’s, stated she was deeply cherished by the Wilshire Park neighborhood and introduced heat into each room she entered.
“She was all the time smiling, and her generosity, advocacy, and love for her college students and colleagues confirmed up in every little thing she did,” McNeill stated. “She’s the instructor that stayed at recess to provide college students further assist, known as her instructing accomplice to e book concepts for lesson plans over the weekend and went store to buy to search out simply the fitting provides to make her classroom thrilling and interesting.”
Karen Chacon stated that Mayra reworked her household’s life by giving her little one the particular consideration wanted to thrive within the classroom.
“Miss Mayra was not only a instructor,” Chacon stated. “She was somebody who really noticed kids for who they had been and believed in who they may turn into. When our little one wanted further care and assist, Miss Mayra didn’t step again, she stepped ahead.”
Colleagues remembered Mayra as a devoted educator and energetic member of the academics union who spoke as much as assist the wants of her college students and fellow workers members.
Bryant Ruiz retains his arm round his 9-year-old son Ian, who was a pupil of slain instructor Mayra Jimenez.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Occasions)
“Mayra was an activist, an advocate, a frontrunner, a good friend, and most of all a beloved instructor,” stated Cecily Myart-Cruz, president of United Lecturers Los Angeles. “Her love for her college students was paramount, and she or he labored arduous, stayed late, and all the time led by instance.”
Mayra Jimenez’s physique was discovered early Wednesday morning when Los Angeles Police Division officers carried out a wellness verify at her North Hollywood house on the behest of her husband.
Inside, officers discovered her bludgeoned to demise and an ensuing investigation linked Andrew to the killing, officers stated. Authorities allege he used an ax to kill her.
An legal professional retained by Andrew’s household instructed ABC7 that moments earlier than the killing, Andrew learn a diary entry by which his spouse described partaking in infidelity.
Andrew Jimenez is a longtime firefighter and paramedic who had been with the Glendale Hearth Division since 2008. He has since been positioned on administrative go away, in accordance with town.
“The home violence demise of Mayra Jimenez is a devastating reminder of the persistent scourge of intimate accomplice violence in our communities,” L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman stated in an announcement. “Nobody, together with these sworn to guard others, is above the regulation, and we’ll maintain the defendant accountable for this horrific crime and produce justice to Ms. Jimenez and her family members.”
