Schenectady homicide victim’s faith, love of family recalled

Valerie Washington was found dead Sept. 2 in the basement of a Union Street home in Schenectady.

Just after the start of each month, Valerie Washington would travel from Schenectady to the Bronx and spend four or five days with her mother and stepfather, her brother recalled this week.

She would help the senior citizens with everyday tasks, like paying bills and cooking meals, some of which she would freeze for them to eat later, said the brother, Carlos Washington.

“That way,” he said, “if they got a taste for a favorite dish she’d cooked, they would be able to warm it up and not have to go in front of the stove.”

There was another thing the 55-year-old woman would do for her mother, her brother recalled: “Out of all of us, she was the one that would call our mother every day,” he said. “She really loved her mother.”

Just over a week ago, those calls stopped.

They stopped because Washington crossed paths with someone who killed her, then tried to hide her death from the world by leaving her body inside the debris-strewn basement of 1330 Union St., downstairs from her apartment.

Her body was discovered the afternoon of Sept. 2, when police received a call to check on the welfare of a resident. They made their way to the basement and soon discovered Washington’s remains.

They also discovered a man in his 60s — also a resident of the building — beaten, disoriented and seemingly left to die. Police have not elaborated on how Washington’s remains were found, but said the man was alive in a barricaded room under a pile of debris.

Police have declined to release the man’s identity, or a cause of death for Washington, or a time frame for the attack on her and her death.

Her brother said the family doesn’t recall the date of Washington’s final call to her mother, only that it was a few days before her body was found.

Soon after the discoveries were made, police had a suspect in custody — the newest resident of 1330 Union St., ex-convict Harold M. Ortiz.

Ortiz, who had served every day of a 17-year sentence for a Brooklyn attempted murder before being released in July, has been charged with attempting to murder the man found alive in the basement. Police say Ortiz hit the man with a shovel, piled the debris on him and fled.

No charges have been filed in connection with Washington’s death, but further charges against Ortiz are expected to be considered by a Schenectady County grand jury. Those proceedings are underway, but are expected to take a while because of the amount of evidence in the case.

For now, the grand jury has taken just enough action to head off a preliminary hearing in the case and keep Ortiz locked up without bail. The District Attorney’s Office served notice of this on the defense Tuesday, meaning the next court appearance will likely be after any indictment is handed up.

In the meantime, Washington’s family is left to honor her life and pay their final respects. Services are scheduled for this weekend in Manhattan.

Washington and her three siblings grew up in New York City but each moved away. Carlos Washington recalled his sister comparing Schenectady to his new home, South Carolina. She didn’t expect the cold, he said, but she adjusted.

When Washington called her brother, he recalled, the tone of her greeting showed her sense of humor. She wouldn’t just say “Hello,” he recalled, she would say “Hello, my brother” in a different way that would make him smile.

“She would make you laugh,” Carlos Washington said. “She was very outspoken. She was a character.”

Washington had no children but treated her nieces and nephews as her own, Carlos Washington said. She wanted them to have the best, and pushed them to get their education.

She couldn’t work much herself in recent years, her brother said, as she was slowed by injury. She had one knee replaced and then the other. After the second, he recalled, she had a tough time.

That’s where the monthly trips to the Bronx to spend time with her mother and stepfather came in, he said.

“I think when she started doing that, that really gave her a sense of doing something to keep her mind occupied,” the brother said, “and she looked forward to it.”

She was also religious, and the family takes some solace in that, Carlos Washington said. It was in the past five years, he said, that she was saved. She had made peace with God and given her life to God.

The brother said members of the family hope to come to Schenectady soon to collect her belongings, especially her pictures. Before then, though, they will be laying her to rest.

He said her death — and the fact that it was at the hands of someone else — has been tough on the entire family. So they are focusing on giving Valerie a proper funeral.

“I’m not saying I’m not grieving, because I am,” he said. “But right now I’m in the mode where I want to go ahead and put my sister to rest. That’s the kind of state I am in.”