The News-Times: Local Bright girl hid her dark side 
Bright girl hid her dark side
By Eileen FitzGerald and Robert Miller
THE NEWS-TIMES
2002-05-21
DANBURY — Christina Long’s life was short, troubled and so contradictory you want to weep.
She had spent less than two years at St. Peter School in Danbury. But in moving from fifth to sixth grade, she had become an altar girl, co-captain of the cheerleading squad and the first kid in the class to raise her hand and answer a teacher’s question.
“She was a very good student and a very good cheerleader. She was very spirited, just a doll,’’ said Andrea Cappiello, a former teacher at St. Peter, who taught Christina in fifth-grade English and religion classes. “She had friends, good friends, at St. Peter. They took her in. She added so much life to the class.”
To the kids who played football with her in the street in front of her Peace Street home, she was the neighborhood cheerleader, and joker, the one who always tried to make the other kids smile.
“She was the one who would tell you to think about the good things if anything bad happened to you,’’ said her friend, Thamiris Silva.
“She’d make us laugh,’’ said Chris Barnum, another friend.
But Christina Long, at 13, according to police, was already promiscuous beyond an adult’s years, living in the fast lane in a child’s body. At her own Web site — whose name includes the phrase “sxyme4utosee” — she tells visitors “maybe if i get to talk to ya u can here more about my dead sexy self’’
“i am very outgoing,’’ she says at the start of her site in the stylized, broken spelling and punctuation she favored. “i will do anything at least once. i never back out on a bet.Ÿ.Ÿ.Ÿ.
“i like hot cars, too,’’ she writes on the Web site. “im like dress nice. im not hoe. i just dance sexier then most girls. i alsoe got a picture if you would like to see it.’’ “I could see the tougher side growing,’’ Cappiello said. “She was streetwise. But you could see the other side coming up, too. It’s clear she was very torn in both directions.”
On Friday, authorities said, Long went to the Danbury Fair mall to meet Saul Dos Reis, a 25-year-old Greenwich man she had met first on the Internet, then in person. As in the past, they had sex. But this time, police said, Dos Reis ended the encounter in his car by strangling Long. Authorities said he then drove her body to Greenwich and dumped her in the back yard of a home. She was found early Monday.
“It’s a tragedy for the neighborhood,’’ said Marianna Lasita, one the parents talking on Peace Street, near where Long lived with her aunt, Shelly Riling. Riling declined to be interviewed.
Instability seemed to be part and parcel of Long’s life. She came from a broken home where both parents were substance abusers, police said.
“i have a very odd life style,’’ she wrote on her Web site. “i don’t really feel close to my parents because of some of the things they did and said to me.’’
Long came from the Hill and Plain School in New Milford last year to St. Peter, which has 280 students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, as a fifth-grader. Her aunt was awarded custody of her in the middle of the school year.
“We were all excited. It was such a great moment. The aunt tried so hard,” Cappiello said.
“I’ve told Shelly she was the best thing that ever happened to Christina,’’ said Lasita, the Peace Street neighbor.
Once settled in town, Long was baptized at St. Peter’s Church — a shift in her life that involved religious instruction. She was a good, lively student.
“Christina was a good writer. She had a writer’s soul and she was very a good artist so she would draw on her assignments, too,’’ Cappiello said.
Alyssa Caravakis,who was at St. Peter with Christina in fifth grade, remembered how Christina attended Caravakis’s 12th birthday party and gave her two necklaces that she still wears all the time.
Caravakis, now a sixth-grader at Broadview Middle School, recalled her friend as generous and kind. She didn’t remember Long ever talking about the Internet but remembered her singing songs by Destiny’s Child and talking about her favorite car, a BMW ZK Roadster.
In a press conference in front of the school Monday afternoon, educators and officials from the Diocese of Bridgeport said they brought in eight counselors to console students. They canceled classes today so they could offer more counseling and hold a memorial service for Long.
“This is a very sad day,’’ St. Peter principal Josephine Ferry said. “She was a sweet girl. She was well-mannered. She was a nice kid.”
In her neighborhood, she was one of the kids, playing sports, joining sleepovers or walking her aunt’s two dogs.
“I’d see her every day, walking the dogs,’’ said Cora Branson, one of their neighbors. “When I heard about her this morning, that’s what I thought of — who will be taking care of those dogs?’’
“She was nice as a friend,’’ said Donnie Ross, 13, one of a handful of kids sitting solemnly on a front stoop on Peace Street. “She loved football. I remember last Aug. 13, we played football in the street in the rain.’’
Long also liked rock, dance and rap music — especially Eminem, a controversial rapper known for his rough language. On her Web site, Long said she, too, wanted to be a rapper.
“im a great dancer i look good and i can ryhm i will make it if i try hard enuff.’’ She also said she practiced dancing in her house more than two hours a day. “my number 1 priority is dancing.....i have aote of things going on in my life and wen i dance it just takes me away from my problems’’ Her Peace Street friends said Long told them she talked to people on the Internet. But that was all she told them, they said.
For parents on Peace Street, Long’s death made their desire to protect their children all the more fierce.
“You see the kids hanging around the mall by themselves,’’ said Kim Thrang, one of the parents. “No one looks after them there. Tell the parents not to just drop their kids off there. Tell them not to let their kids into chat rooms. It’s very dangerous.’’
“We have to watch our children so carefully.’’ said the Rev. Albert Audette, who became pastor of St. Peter Church last month. “They try to be so grown up. The entertainment media has pulled them out of their youth. You have to supervise your children. You can’t leave anything to chance.”
The beginning of Long’s Web site lists “my favorit guys’’ — 15 of them — “and a whole hell of alot of guys that i can’t think of.’’
It ends by saying boys aren’t that big a part of her life.
“it seems everytime i meet the right guy he is a fake and lies to me and wen i actually do finde someone i like alot i get scared. .Ÿ.Ÿ. i wish i had more self-confidence, but its koo. well there you go.’’
Christina’s words
On her Web site, Christina Long talks of her adventurous nature, her desire to be a rap star, her love of dancing and her problems with males. Here are excerpts, exactly as Long wrote them, complete with her creative grammar and spelling.
i am very outgoing. i will do anythng once. i never back out of a bet. i have many friends. i love to meet new ppl. im happy and a good girl at heart, but i talk ghetto.
-
i love to shopp but then again what girl doesnt... i like hot cars too. im like dress nice... i just dance a little sexyer than most girls. i have talent tho and sometimes pppl dont like that or get jealuse so they put it down. i want to be a rapper. im a great dancer i look good and i can rhym.... i will make it if i try hard enough.
-
my number 1 priority is dancing. Some ppl dont understand it but its wat i love to do. it doesnt lie. and it makes me feel good. when i dance its like im in another world. im not just some girl who goes to clubs and dances.... i spend about 2-5 huors a day practicing downstairs my dance steps. i have aote of things going in my life and wen i dance it just takes me away from my problems.
-
it seams every time i meet the right guy he is fake and lies to me and wen i actually do finde someone i like alot i get scard.... i wish i had more self-confidence.