Slain pizza worker, 20, leaves 'beautiful, loving' spirit behind
(Tucson) AZ Daily Star 22Jan99 L8
By M. Scot Skinner: Arizona Daily Star

St. David - On January 21, about 200 mourners gathered to celebrate the "beautiful, loving" spirit of 20 year old Melisa Mae Moniz.

Melisa, known as Lisa, was a waitress at a Pizza Hut on Tucson's eastside. Last Sunday, she and two co-workers, Robert Curry, 44, the manager, and kitchen worker, James Bloxham, 17, were killed during a robbery.

The funeral was brief, but grounded in the Mormon belief that families will be reunited in the afterlife.

Gary Trejo, a Mormon bishop said, ""Death is a graduation from this life to the next. It's part of an eternal progression."

Jim Spalding, a friend of the Moniz family, read a passage from the Bible (John 3:16), which he described as Lisa's favorite scripture: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

At the request of Lisa's boyfriend, Cary Michael Orban, a portable stereo played two Bette Midler ballads, "In My Life," and "Wind Beneath My Wings", while mourners paid their respects.