JERSEY SHORE – The red silhouettes stood in the late-day light outside Ocean Partnership for Children, shaped like people but without faces. Yellow hearts fastened to their chests carried names and the brief, unbearable stories of Ocean County residents killed in domestic violence.
They were part of Providence House’s Silent Silhouettes Project, displayed for Ocean Partnership for Children’s seventh annual Domestic Violence Candlelight Vigil. The people being remembered were not statistics, headlines or case numbers. They were people whose absence continues to reshape families, workplaces and communities.
Maureen DeSantis, Ocean Partnership’s director of care management, named some of those losses from the past 14 months. They included Tyler Webb and Lauren Simencheck, Allan and Michelle Russell and their daughter Deanna, and Eileen Garvin, the beloved Barnegat school bus driver killed in September. Her husband, William Garvin, is charged with murder in her death, a case that remains pending in Ocean County Superior Court.
The recent cases underscored why the vigil was necessary, DeSantis said. Ocean Partnership serves about 1,100 Ocean County families, and at least 30 percent of the children it works with have been directly affected by domestic violence. DeSantis said even that number is likely low.
“This issue is not distant, abstract or happening in some other place,” DeSantis said. “It’s happening in our homes, in our families, neighborhoods, colleges and communities all around us.”
More Than A Court Case
Jamie Schron, a supervising assistant prosecutor with the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Special Victims Unit, said domestic violence cannot be understood only through police reports, criminal charges or courtroom proceedings.
“Behind every case is a person, a family, children, relationships, financial concerns, fear of what happens next and often a complicated journey that may begin long before someone ever feels able to ask for help,” Schron said.
She recognized victim advocates who guide survivors and their families through the criminal-justice process, providing information, support and a consistent person to call when the system feels unfamiliar or overwhelming.
Laurie Toole, community affairs and education manager for Providence House, said silence and isolation allow domestic violence to continue. The agency, which is marking 40 years of service in Ocean County, offers a 24-hour hotline, emergency shelter, legal services, counseling and creative arts therapy for child witnesses of domestic violence.
“Domestic violence is not a private family matter,” Toole said. “If we continue to treat it as something that should remain behind closed doors, it will never be eradicated.”
A New Home For Dottie’s House
Liz Graham, CEO of 180 Turning Lives Around, introduced her agency to Ocean County. The Monmouth County-based domestic and sexual violence response agency is celebrating its 50th year. This year it stepped in to save Dottie’s House.
Founded by Carol Wolfe, Dottie’s House is a transitional housing program where survivors can stay while they work on their cases and rebuild their lives. When the program dissolved, property owner Homes Now committed to keeping the house exclusively for domestic violence survivors and reached out to 180. Graham said she told her board they had to decide that same night. She didn’t want any family living there to spend a single day worrying about where they would go.
Graham said staff at 180’s own safe house used to celebrate whenever a client was accepted into Dottie’s House. The property could have become general affordable housing, she said. Instead, it will carry on Wolfe’s vision as a next step for families leaving Providence House’s shelter.
A Light Missing Since March
Diane Goss, a supervising family service specialist with the state Division of Child Protection and Permanency, spoke about the deaths of her colleague Allan Russell, his wife Michelle and their daughter Deanna.
She remembered Alan Russell as a devoted father and grandfather, a man with a dry sense of humor and a private nature who still made time for coworkers and the families he served. He was the kind of caseworker who would be cursed at by a parent in the afternoon and still return that evening to ask what they could do together to make things work.
Russell worked late to accommodate working families, Goss said. He would volunteer to sit with a child in a hospital overnight, even when his own family was waiting for him at home. Coworkers knew him as part of their “A Team,” a close-knit unit that still feels incomplete.
“There is a light that has been missing since March, the light of Allan,” Goss said.
She said the deaths of Allan, Michelle and Deanna Russell had left a continuing loss for those who knew them. Domestic violence, she said, does not end with the people directly involved. It reaches friends, relatives, coworkers and children who must learn to live with a new reality they never wanted.
“Allan, Michelle and Deanna did everything right, and yet their lives were tragically cut short,” Goss said. “It is important to remember who they were, not just how they died.”
‘My Pain Is Turning Into Words’
Lisa Webb spoke about her son Tyler Webb, a 29-year-old mechanic and volunteer firefighter, who was killed alongside Lauren Simencheck in August 2025. The community recently honored Tyler in a memorial car show in Berkeley.
She described a young man with an old soul who bought his home at 23 and worked on it with his father. His house became a place where friends and family gathered, along with his dog, Luna. He had built his own side business, Webb’s Automotive, and made a habit of helping people, whether they were lifelong friends or strangers.
“He was a gentleman with the biggest personality and heart,” Webb said.
She said Tyler and Lauren’s families had become connected through grief, despite not having the chance to know one another before their children were killed. The words ‘domestic violence’ and ‘murder’ still feel impossible beside her son’s name, she said, but she will not let Tyler and Lauren’s lives be defined only by how they died.
“I came here to say Tyler and Lauren’s names because their life stories will not be silenced,” Webb said. “We need to stop the silence. Awareness is the only way to make change happen.”
“My pain is turning into words,” Webb said. “Domestic violence is a crime.” She urged anyone experiencing abuse, or anyone concerned for someone else, not to remain silent.
“Do not stay quiet,” she said. “Speak until something is heard and action is taken.”
A Sister’s Voice
The sister of Dana Gavor Ciccolella spoke from the audience in remembrance. Dana was killed at age 32 and left behind four children. She said her sister’s 13-year-old daughter found her body two days after the killing. The children were separated, and relatives, friends and coworkers were left to carry the loss.
“He may have taken her voice,” she said, “but he will not take mine.”
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