From left: Lauren Pazienza and Barbara Gustern.Photo:Curtis Means/Pool Photo via AP, Barbara Maier Gustern/Facebook
Curtis Means/Pool Photo via AP, Barbara Maier Gustern/Facebook
Prosecutors said that Gustern was simply walking down the sidewalk last March when Pazienza angrily called her an obscenity and intentionally shoved her from behind, causing Gustern to slam her head on the sidewalk. The 87-year-old went into a coma and died five days later.
“After the attack, Pazienza, an event planner, stayed in the area for approximately 20 minutes, before taking the subway back to her apartment in Astoria, Queens, with her fiancé,” the district attorney said Wednesday.
Pazienza didn’t mention the assault to her fiancé until late that evening. She soon deleted her social media accounts and took down her wedding website, the district attorney said, eventually fleeing to Long Island to stay with her parents.
The day Gustern died, Pazienza turned herself in to police.
Barbara Gustern.Barbara Maier Gustern/Facebook
Barbara Maier Gustern/Facebook
Pazienza allegedly told detectives that she had several glasses of wine and had just gotten into a fight with her fiancé before she reportedly shoved Gustern, who had just finished a rehearsal a short while before the attack.
Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up forPEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletterfor breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.Gustern’s grandson said on social media that she was “one of the brightest little flames to ever grace this world.”
“I struggle to understand and cope with this world on a daily basis, and frankly this is beyond my ability to bear,” the grandson wrote in a social media post, PEOPLE previouslyreported.
From left: Lawyer Arthur Aidala and Lauren Pazienza.Curtis Means/Pool Photo via AP
Curtis Means/Pool Photo via AP
Gustern was a noted member of the artistic community in New York, according toThe New York Times, having worked with Broadway professionals and beyond. According toPlaybill, Gustern worked on the 2019 Broadway revival of Oklahoma! that featured Tony Award winnerAli Strokeras well as on the 2008 musical Passing Strange.
One of Gustern’s students, Morgan Jenness, was in the courtroom for Pazienza’s bail hearing last year and said the now 28-year-old deserved to face punishment for shoving Gustern.
“She ran across the street to push an elderly woman for no reason, because she was having a temper tantrum, and pushed her so hard that she hit her head and bled out and died,” Jenness said. “And I’m sorry for her. I’m sorry for her parents. But what she did needs to have consequences.”
source: people.com
