WEST WARWICK -- The mother of one of The Station nightclub fire victims has claimed responsibility for removing a memorial dedicated to Great White guitarist Ty Longley from the fire site.
Diane Mattera, of Warwick, told radio and print reporters yesterday that she had taken two wooden crosses, photos of Longley's son, and a teddy bear left in his son's honor, from the site on Friday.
"I just threw them into the woods," Mattera said, "because Ty does not belong there. I feel sorry for him that he died, but the only thing is he doesn't belong there."
Mattera's daughter, Tamara Mattera-Housa, was killed in the fire Feb. 20 at age 29.
Mattera said she felt no shame about what she did, and never made any attempt to hide it.
"From my point of view. I didn't really do anything wrong," she said.
She said she put her daughter's name on a note she left at the site, so that people would know the theft was a deliberate act, and not the work of vandals.
"They knew who did this from the start. I had her name on there. There was no misleading as to who wrote the note," Mattera said.
Friends and well-wishers replaced Longley's stolen wooden cross with a welded-steel cross, built into a poured cement base.
Yesterday, she said she was hoping to remove that cross as well, or any other memorials erected to Longley -- but not now, while attention is focused on the site.
Jody King, vice president of The Station Family Fund and a friend of Longley's girlfriend, said that the community will not allow Mattera to act again.
"Rhode Island is watching now. If she tries to go back, more people will watch it."
And even if she did, King said, unless Mattera has a backhoe, the new cross he built with his friend Owen Kelly isn't going anywhere. "She can't get rid of this one. It's under 300 pounds of rock and cement. It's not moving," King said.
King said Longley's girlfriend, Heidi M. Peralta, was outraged when she first heard of the theft, but that she later understood Mattera's anger.
"She can totally have sympathy for the way that parent feels," King said. Peralta lives in Chicago with Longley's five-week-old son, Acey.
King said he isn't looking for any retribution. "I don't want any charges pressed. I'm happy that she admitted to it. It takes a bigger person to do that."
The West Warwick police have said prosecuting this case would be difficult, for several reasons: the items were left out in the open, and a number of different people said they owned the items that were stolen.
The one thing King did ask is that Mattera return the items she took, or tell him exactly where to find them. He said he's looked for them in the woods near the site, and he can't find them.
