Hundreds of mourners packed a Harlem church Saturday to bid farewell to Lovay Williams, the 27-year-old mother beaten to death in front of her young daughter earlier this month.
A white horse-drawn carriage bearing her photo carried Williams’ white and gold-trimmed casket to Canaan Baptist Church on West 116th Street for the service.
Her 7-year-old daughter, who was found in the apartment when police discovered Williams had been savagely beaten, attended the ceremony in a green dress — one of her mother’s favorite colors. The girl’s uncle, Nuquan Williams Jr., wore a necklace containing his sister’s picture around his neck to the somber service.
“Right now, I’m very devastated,” he told The Post.
“On behalf of my sister, I’m kind of angry … that her life was taken from her so, so young, 27 years old, devoted mother.”
He described his niece as resilient despite the trauma. “She’s in loving spirits,” Williams Jr. Said of the girl. “She’s strong for her mom, and she has a bunch of support. You know, me, all my family, work for the state, city … so she’s gonna be well taken care of.”
At one point during the funeral mass, the little girl was escorted up to the open casket to see her mother, who lay in a green dress with a light white jacket, a gold necklace and a gold tiara, her hands crossed in front of her.
Williams’ grandfather, Jose Chango Alvarez, 65, addressed the congregation as a choir sang during the mass.
“But at the same time, I feel blessed that she’s somewhere peaceful in God’s hand, and she not feeling no pain,” Alvarez said. “Even though she was taken too early from us, life is gonna move on, but we’re gonna move on in her name, Lovay.”
He vowed the family would protect the child. “She’s gonna be okay, because we gonna keep her strong,” Alvarez added.
Some mourners wore green T-shirts emblazoned with Williams’ photo and the words “Forever 27.” Giana Brown, who called Williams one of her best friends from middle school, was among those dressed in the color.
“Of course, I had to wear green as one of her favorites,” she said.
Brown recalled her friend’s selfless nature. “She always put people before her, like, always putting a smile on somebody’s face,” she shared. “If you know how her spirit is definitely, like, she has a pure spirit as a person.”
Williams’ boyfriend, Tiliek Thompson, allegedly killed her on Sept. 6 in their Washington Heights apartment. Thompson is being held at Rikers Island on a murder charge.
At the conclusion of mass, four doves were released outside the church to cheers from the crowd. People shouted “we love you” as her body was lifted back into the carriage, and someone called out “Lovay is gone” as the horses whisked her away.
Thompson remains jailed at Rikers Island awaiting further proceedings.