Heckenberg crash: Memorial confirmed for siblings Alina and Ernesto Kauffman
A memorial featuring a fruit tree and plaque will be built to honour two siblings who were killed in a horror crash only metres from their southwest Sydney home last year.
Liverpool
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A memorial featuring a fruit tree and plaque will honour two siblings who were killed in a horror crash only metres from their southwest Sydney home last year.
Alina Kauffman, 24, was picking up her brother Ernesto Salazar, 15, from his first job at Kmart when their car was involved in a collision with a Mercedes 4WD allegedly travelling at high speed in Heckenberg on September 1.
The siblings leave behind their younger sister Ayeanna, and single mother Angelina.
Liverpool MP and councillor Charishma Kaliyanda tabled a motion at Wednesday’s council meeting for the installation of a bench, fruit tree and memorial at Sadleir Ave, Heckenberg where Alina and Ernesto were killed.
Ms Kaliyanda said the memorial will serve as a “lasting tribute to their lives”.
“It is really important that we give our community a place to honour the legacy of Alina and Ernesto.”
“But I think our community would want us to highlight the people who we have lost from this community who won’t get to be a nurse at Liverpool because their life was cut short”.
The Labor councillor said the council would consult with the Kauffman family to design the plaque.
“The fruit tree has specifically been requested so that any young person who is hungry can help themselves to fruit from the tree,” Ms Kaliyanda said.
The motion was passed unanimously by councillors who also agreed to additionally write to the state government requesting they support Ms Kauffman’s petition for consistency in sentences for serious road crimes.
Liverpool council’s chief executive officer John Ajaka, said the cost of the $3,500 memorial has been included in the council’s budget for the year and long-term financial plan.
This comes after Angelina Kauffman started a petition with the NSW Legislative Assembly to increase the maximum penalties for serious road crimes in January.
“I’m asking everyone to please sign the online petition to help change the laws around dangerous driving occasioning death,” she wrote online.
Johnson Kokozian, 20, was arrested 18 hours after the collision with police alleging he was behind the wheel of a stolen Mercedes Benz which hit and killed the siblings.
He has been charged with ten offences, including two counts of dangerous driving occasioning death, and remains before the courts.
A friend of Kokozian, Cruz Pamoana Davis-Tuka, 21, was charged with concealing a serious indictable offence and hindering an investigation of a serious indictable offence
Another friend of Kokozian, Laila Moukhallaletti, 20, was charged with concealing a serious indictable offence.
The 61-year-old father of Johnson Kokozian was charged with concealing a serious indictable offence and hindering an investigation.
No pleas have been entered for any of the accused.
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