A GoFundMe for the infant daughter of slain Bank of America executive Erin Piacenti has raised nearly half a million dollars as donors rush to support the 5-month-old girl left motherless in a Times Square stabbing attack.
Piacenti, 32, had just returned from maternity leave Monday when Pamela Cisneros attacked her in what the fundraiser described as “a random, senseless, and unprovoked attack in Times Square.” The new mom was on her first day back at the vice president post she had earned at Bank of America.
“Becoming a mother was Erin’s lifelong ambition, and Madison gave her the greatest possible joy,” the GoFundMe page states of Piacenti’s daughter with husband Frank.
The family had recently returned from a road trip and was settling back into routine in their Chester, New Jersey home along a wooded lane. Piacenti and Frank had marked their second wedding anniversary not long before the killing.
Cisneros was shot dead by NYPD officers after she charged at them brandishing kitchen knives, having threatened to kill police and ignored repeated commands to drop the weapons.
“Erin’s life was defined not by the circumstances of her death, but instead by the way she lived,” the fundraiser reads, having collected around $460,000 from roughly 5,000 donors by early Thursday.
“Erin was deeply devoted to her family and friends, exceptionally bright and accomplished, and was someone who brought warmth and energy to the people around her,” the page continues.
The GoFundMe was established to secure Madison’s future and give those touched by Piacenti’s story a way to help. “This fund has been established to support Madison and her future,” the organizers wrote. “It offers the many people who loved Erin, knew her, worked with her, or have simply been moved by her story a way to honor Erin by helping care for the daughter she loved more than anything.”
“That life changed incomprehensibly in an instant,” the fundraiser noted of the family’s shattered plans.