From NJ.com:
NEWARK — Shalga Hightower was in her usual seat Wednesday night at Christian Love Baptist Church, rocking in approval as her pastor extolled the virtues of faith.
He was reading from the book of Genesis 22, the story of Abraham being asked by God to sacrifice his only son, only to have God reward his faith just before he plunged the knife.
Earlier in the day, Shalga Hightower was in her usual seat in Essex County Superior Court, trying not to cry as the taped statement of the man accused of murdering three Newark college students was played.
When Rodolfo Godinez described the machete attack on her daughter, Iofemi, she bit hard on her quivering lip.
This is life for Shalga Hightower today. Faith and courage, practiced from two very different seats. One bolsters her faith and courage, the other drains it.
“God has gotten me through this,” she said Wednesday after the service in the office of Ron Christian, her pastor. “My daughter’s murder brought me back to God.”
She was a preacher’s daughter, and a preacher’s granddaughter. Her grandfather, Nick Hightower, founded the House of God Saints in Christ, in Jacksonville, Fla., in 1927, and the church now has 80 branches in eight states.
Her uncle, John McClain, is pastor of Grace Temple Baptist Church, where her daughter was laid to rest three summers ago.
With that lineage, God was never far from her heart. But not close enough, she says, after her daughter was murdered.
“I almost lost my mind. I couldn’t speak. Satan tried to take my voice, but God came and gave it back to me.”
With that voice, Shalga Hightower has preached anti-violence wherever she can. Street rallies, the jails, the churches. She was a recipient this year of the state’s Jefferson Award, a prestigious community service honor.
“She actually garners strength from her daughter,” Christian said.
“My daughter lives on through me, and my other children, and all the people she touched,” Hightower said. “I’ll never let that go.”
And yet, living with it takes a courage that is incomprehensible.
“It’s one thing for a mother to lose a child,” Christian said. “But this is something she can’t escape. All the details of the way she died, all the media attention. And now, six separate trials (one for each of the defendants). She has to re-live this over and over.”
Shalga Hightower showed that courage right from the start. She insisted her daughter’s coffin be opened, showing scars from the machete attack and all, over the objections of relatives and the mortician.
“I wanted people to see the devil’s work,” she said. “I wanted people to see what violence did.”
Now, nearly three years later, she sits through testimony that details the attack.
Sometimes, it’s emotional, like when Natasha Aeriel, who survived the attack, described how her best friend was hacked, then dragged off and shot.
Sometimes it’s scientific, like when a Newark police ballistics expert explained the match of bullet fragments from the victims to the recovered weapon, a .357 Colt Trooper, or when the machete was shown for the first time, and it’s weight and cutting depth were explained in clinical terms.
Each time, Shalga Hightower holds strong. She rocks gently in her seat, calling on her higher power to hold her together.
Only once did it fail — when pictures of the autopsy were entered into evidence, and the deep wounds explained.
Only then did she leave the courtroom, to compose herself, and dig a little deeper for her faith. Then she was back for the next session, and the next, and the next.
