BRIDGEPORT -- Family members described her as outgoing, happy and looking forward to starting a life with her boyfriend.
They were still in shock over Friday's discovery of 25-year-old Latoya Ricks' body in her third-floor apartment at the Bridgeport Commons I on Central Avenue.
Bridgeport Police Capt. James Viadero said Ricks death is "definitely not a homicide." He said police are awaiting toxicology reports from the Office of the State Medical Examiner.
A spokesman for the Women Shoes Medical Examiner's office said Monday those results may not be available for as long as as eight weeks. The autopsy they conducted was inconclusive as to the cause of death.
Initially, Ricks was reported to have died from stab wounds. Other reports claimed she drowned in a bathtub. Viadero, however, said neither the superficial lacerations found on the body nor drowning was the cause of death.
"This was not a homicide," he said.
Lyndon Mercer said he has known Ricks almost "all my life" and "she wouldn't commit suicide."
"She was always happy," he said. "She'd start a conversation with a stranger."
He urged the police to talk to the family and "give them some answers."
"Who would think a 25-year-old baby would die?" asked Latisha Broadus, Ricks' sister, who was at the scene Monday with her mother, Madeline Green. "She had everything to live for. She did not kill herself."
Broadus said Ricks was a certified nurse's aide, worked as a child-care provider and was looking forward to getting into a technical school next month.
Since Friday, Broadus said, she has received 300 cellphone calls all questioning her sister's death.
Broadus said Ricks moved out of her house into the Central Avenue apartment with her boyfriend on July 8. "She loved him," Broadus said. "She cared about him. She told me she was looking forward to starting a life together with him."
Meanwhile, family members reeling from Ricks' death were dealt a second blow Monday when a memorial attached to a utility pole alongside the apartment building's driveway was torn down and removed by the building's superintendent.
The memorial, which called attention to Ricks' life, was created by Arlene Mercer out of nearly 200 stuffed animals, balloons, candles, photos and posters.
"I took it down this morning," John Shovanec, the superintendent, told an angry Mercer and Ricks' family. "When the building's owner tells me to do something, I do it." Shovanec said he bagged the stuffed animals and brought them to the Salvation Army. Pictures of Ricks were put in the Bottega Veneta sale office.
"But these were not on your property," Mercer challenged Shovanec. "They were on city property. You had no business to do this."
Mercer has been setting up memorials for the past 15 years honoring the lives of people who die violent deaths in Bridgeport. She said the removal of the memorial destroyed her inventory of stuffed animals so much that she could only replace them with straw hats and handwritten posters Monday afternoon.
She handed Latisha Broadus a crisp $100 bill for the funeral the family says it can't afford.
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