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Following a CLIFFVIEW PILOT report, a representative of Kulinski Memorials contacted the dead woman’s sister, Stella Tulli, offering to donate the headstone.
“My shattered heart is beginning to repair through the kindness of strangers,” Stella Tulli told CLIFFVIEW PILOT Sunday afternoon, before visiting her sister’s grave. “Kulinski Memorials came through in a time of need.
“Not knowing me, they showed that there is still goodness in such a cruel world.”
She had similarly kind words for Pips Pub (no website) in Garfield.
On a Facebook page titled “A Benefit in Support of Viviana Tulli and the Tulli Family,” Stella Tulli writes:
“A portion of the evening’s proceeds will be donated to the Tulli Family in addition to donations being accepted and very much appreciated. Join Pip’s in celebrating the life of a beautiful young woman, who was taken from us too soon.”
There isn’t much written online anywhere about Pip’s Pub itself. A Google map search shows an apparently empty storefront.
Stella Tulli said her family was reduced to borrowing from friends and family to pay $16,000 toward her sister’s funeral, after getting $5,000 from the state.
She told CLIFFVIEW PILOT she hoped donations would help pay for the headstone to replace a wooden cross sticking from the grave at St. Mary‘s Cemetery in Saddle Brook.
“Mom doesn’t work. I live at home to try to help with bills,” said Tulli, who set up a PayPal account for anyone who wants to help her and her family.
David Goodell was finishing out a sentence in a halfway house when he suffered a seizure and was taken to UMDNJ Medical Center on Aug. 29. Soon after, “Goodell absconded,” Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said, and a parole warrant was issued.
Hours later, Goodell met up with Tulli, his ex-girlfriend, at a mutual friend’s house in Elmwood Park. They were in her car when he strangled her, and he was standing outside the 2007 Nissan Versa when a 911 caller reported seeing him bloodied and disoriented.
When Ridgefield Park Police showed up, he peeled out, the prosecutor said. Following a brief chase, he ended up in a cul-de-sac in Ridgefield. With Tulli’s lifeless body still in the passenger seat, Goodell plowed her car head-on into a police cruiser, in what many close to the case believe was an attempt at “suicide by cop.”
Goodell, 30, of Clifton (formerly of Ridgefield Park) is being held in the Bergen County Jail, awaiting trial on murder and other charges.
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