Steven Sierra spoke about his “roller coaster” marriage with his wife Sarai as hundreds payed their last respects tonight to the Staten Island mom who was mysteriously slain on a solo trip to Europe.
“We were looking to grow old together,” the jilted husband said during the Valentine’s Day wake, choking up at times.
Sarai went missing on Feb 3 and it was later reported that she had been seeing a man identified as Tarkan K. Turkish newspapers said the man had sex with Sarai in a bar restroom before she disappeared.
“Despite the roller coaster that we’d been through in our marriage … The love was truly so deep, so rooted, that we always made it through,” Steven said.
Her two young sons, Sion and Silas, sat quietly on relatives’ laps at Christian Pentecostal Church while dad Steven — who proposed to his wife on Valentine’s Day fifteen years ago — met mourners near the closed white coffin bearing the 33-year-old Silver Lake mom’s remains.
Sierra’s friends and family smiled through tears as videos of Sarai — as a child with her dad, Dennis Jimenez, on the beach with Steven, and pregnant with her kids — played on large screens set up on either side of the church altar.
Before his wife was slain, Sierra poured his heart out on social media, indicating their marital strife.
“Don’t cheat in relationship [sic],” reads Steven Sierra’s Instagram posting dated Dec. 28.
FBI sources said Sierra had been seen with a “criminal element” before she disappeared. Investigators have questioned several people in her death and are reportedly looking for a homeless man in connection with the murder.
“It doesn’t sound like they’re describing the girl I know,” Carlo said.
“There’s been so many things said, and so many things untrue. If we would just stick to what actually happened, I think it would help, but unfortunately (there’s) a lot of innuendos and things.
Longtime family friend Danny Gonzalez said the community has rallied around the Sierra boys.
“They want to understand that out of sad stories, you have to find something positive in it,” Gonzalez said.
“The [boys] understand what happened, they’re receiving a lot of love from their family and friends.
Sierra will be buried Friday morning.