Officials in Northwest Rochester have provided further information regarding a lady who was discovered deceased near Gage Elementary School on March 1. Mercedes Christiana Rocha, who is 22 years old, has been formally recognized by police.
Students and faculty members at the institution were still in session today as well. Body of Mercedes Christiana Rocha was found in the parking area at Gage Elementary on Wednesday night near a snow pile.
In an area near a school where youngsters take a recess, the police suspect she has been blanketed in snow for many weeks. Charles Jackson, the Community Housing Liaison with the Community Engagement Response Team (CERT) in Rochester, has first-hand experience with the trauma of a kid being missing in the city of Rochester.
According to Charles Jackson, “When your child is missing and you don’t know where their whereabouts are, my mind was everywhere”
Brandy Brown, a local therapist, explains that for students, this may be a frightening period.
“The largest concern is each kid is going to be very independent obviously. I get really anxious when we try to do one thing for the whole population, for all the school systems,” said Brown. “There is no one way to approach this. We really do have to offer the support at the schools and within the homes and allowing kids to talk about this.”
This scenario will be remembered by the Rocha family for a long time, and Jackson is well aware of that fact.”
“When I’m going through that type of emotional moment it impacts my spouse and it impacts the kids in the house too,” said Jackson.
“In tragedy we can come together and we can use those things to bring forth something positive from that, otherwise tragedy is just tragedy,” Brown added.
In order to ascertain the exact cause of death, an autopsy is being carried out.
