Slain jogger Katie Suarez honored for how she lived at solemn Brooklyn funeral

Leonard Greene, New York Daily News on Nov 12, 2026

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NEW YORK — Mourners at a funeral for slain jogger Katie Suarez were encouraged Thursday to remember the Brooklyn bank teller for the upbeat and positive way she lived instead of the cruel and heartless way she died.

Family, friends and co-workers filled a Gravesend church to say their final goodbyes to a woman whose grisly murder shocked the city.

But instead of focusing only on the stabbing attack that ended her life late last month during an after-work jog, mourners were urged to keep her kind and loving spirit alive.

“Will we remember Katie simply because of how she passed?” asked the Rev. Edwin Ortiz, pastor of the Sts. Simon & Jude Roman Catholic Church that celebrated Suarez’ life with songs and prayers. “Or will we remember and honor her in the way she treated others, in the way she welcomed others, in the way she took time to get to know others.”

Ortiz, in a service conducted in Spanish and English, spoke of Suarez’s sense of humor, her patience and her ability to listen and give advice.

“We can focus simply on how she passed, but we will miss the point,” Ortiz said. “Katie truly was a gift from God, and truly someone who brought us together. We can never forget that.”

Suarez, 28, a bank teller at TD Bank in Bath Beach, was out for an after-work run on Oct. 30 along the Shore Parkway Greenway, next to the Belt Parkway, when she was attacked and fatally stabbed in the neck near Bay 17th St. in Bath Beach.

Her worried parents went looking for her after she failed to meet up with them at a local Wendy’s, as they had planned. She was discovered by her dad and died after several days on life support at NYU Langone Hospital – Brooklyn.

Days later, cops, using surveillance footage, tracked down suspect Sayed Mohassib, 27, and charged the public school teacher’s aide with murder.

Mohassib also previously had short, failed stints with the NYPD and the U.S. Marines.

But none of that was a subject of conversation at the church, where mourners were asked to wear purple to honor the victim.

After the service, Suarez’s parents, family and friends released purple balloons outside the church.

Her mother, Yasira Suarez, broke down weeping on the heartbroken father’s shoulder as the coffin was brought out to the waiting hearse in heavy rain.

After her death, Suarez, an organ donor, helped save four lives. Nonprofit LiveOnNY said she donated her heart, both kidneys, liver and pancreas to people waiting on the national transplant list. She also donated her corneas.

“Katie brought God to so many people in small and simple ways,” Ortiz said. “In her family, love is at the center of everything. We too must come together to continue what Katie taught us.”

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