Girl Buried But Case Goes On

Julie Cirella was buried this week but her parents are continuing their separate paths through the legal system.

Veronica Cirella, the mother of the disabled girl who died July 23, is due for a hearing Aug. 15 in her second-degree manslaughter case. The father, Joseph, was already in jail when Julie died, facing domestic violence charges and will be in court Aug.16.

Julie died a few hours before she was supposed to serve as a flower girl in her cousin’s wedding.  She was 8 years old.

When Dolores Cirella, Julie’s grandmother, came looking for them in their Shelly Court home, she found Julie dead and her daughter-in-law lying on the floor nearby, a cord wrapped around her neck.

The next day, Veronica Cirella was arraigned at her bedside at Nassau University Medical Center on the manslaughter charges. The Nassau County prosecutor said the girl died after her mother fed her food that she was allergic to, and that she’d written a note saying her daughter “should die.”

Prosecutors said in a statement, "There was a certain protocol that should have been followed as far as giving care for the allergy" that Cirella didn't take.

Julie, who had  cerebral palsy and used a wheelchair to get around,  was buried Wednesday at St. Charles Cemetery in Farmingdale, a service preceded by a scheduled 45-minute visitation period at Vernon C. Wagner Funeral Home and a service at .