BY CARL MACGOWAN | carl.macgowan@newsday.com
10:43 PM EDT, May 13, 2009
Kay Barrigan was found dead at her Searingtown home, police said. (Handout)
Kay Barragan was a stylish woman who liked pretty clothes and perfume, said her daughter, Kay Otilia Massell, of Santa Rosa, Calif.
But beneath the fashionable exterior was a woman of strong faith who raised a disabled daughter and helped her husband start a multimillion-dollar bedding company, Massell said.
And in recent years, she cared for a son afflicted with schizophrenia – the same son accused Wednesday of killing Barragan in their Searingtown home. “I feel very sad,” Massell, 42, said Wednesday.
“My mother loved her children very much, and she sacrificed for us and she loved her grandchildren. She had 12 grandchildren, and she was a doting grandmother who never missed a birthday or an Easter or a Christmas, and called every day to make sure that everyone had eaten and they were doing well in school.”
Barragan loaned her husband Napoleon $2,000 to start Dial-A-Mattress in 1976. Joe Vicens, the company’s chief operating officer of national sales, called Barragan “a dedicated and committed member of our founding team.”
Kay Barragan’s death and her son’s arrest is the latest family tragedy. Massell’s sister, Beatrice, known as Bibi, had a heart problem since birth and died in 2003 at 27. Their brother, Luis, 34, died in 2006 in a swimming accident.
Massell said her faith carried her through the family’s tragedies.
Eduardo Barragan, 38, who was charged in the death of his mother, is godfather to two of Massell’s children. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia 19 years ago, Massell said.
“Eddie is a wonderful brother,” she said.
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