Murder victim’s mother hosts awareness protest

A group of supporters stood outside the Marion County Courthouse in Hannibal on Friday, Jan. 2, 2026, in order to encourage the Marion County Prosecutor, Luke Bryant, to seek the death penalty in a murder case against Gabriel Anthony Juarez. Juarez is charged in the death of Emily Traynor, 22, at the apartment they shared on North Sixth Street in October 2025. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. Jan. 12, 2026, before Judge Jennifer Richardson in Associate Circuit Court at Hannibal. Photo contributed by Lisa Griffith.

MARY LOU  MONTGOMERY

For the Courier-Post

Early in 2025, Emily Traynor, 22, a graduate of Bowling Green High School who had relocated to Hannibal, decided to try her luck with online dating. She met a man from Kansas who was five years her senior, and they decided to pursue a dating relationship.

The story, as told by Lisa Griffith, Emily’s mother, begins when Gabriel Juarez moved to Hannibal and secured a job at General Mills. Emily was subsequently working as a home health care worker. The two lived together in a small apartment in the 300 block of North Sixth Street. 

As the months passed, Emily told her mother that the relationship “wasn’t what she wanted,” and said she had tried to end things.

Griffith said that Emily told her that Gabriel “cried and threatened to kill himself.”

Emily later told her mother that she called his mom, “said prayers with his mom on the phone. He was broken.”

In the meantime, Griffith said, “Emily had started speaking to me about being conflicted about what she should do. She didn’t give me any bad details, she just said this was not the way she wanted to be loved, not long term. She had sent me (a copy of) a long break-up text, (in which she) wished him the best; she hoped he didn’t have hate in his heart for her, she hoped he had learned some things from the relationship.

“But,” Griffith said, “he wasn’t having it. He threatened to kill himself. She couldn’t live with that.”

Within a week after the first initial breakup, they were back together, Griffith said.

Emily told her mother she would try to break things off again in a couple of weeks.

“There is a good possibility that she tried to break it off again,” Griffith said.

“We were very close. We talked every day,” Griffith said of her relationship with her daughter.

On Monday, Oct. 13, 2025, “Emily was a no show for work,” Griffith said. She learned that her daughter’s employer had received a text stating that Emily wouldn’t be in for work. When the employer tried to call Emily, no one answered the phone, Griffith said.

“They went to look at her emergency contact" on her work files, “and found that she had left it blank. So her employer notified the police and asked them to check on her.

“They knocked on the door, no answer,” Griffith said. “They hadn’t left yet and saw someone peek his head out of the door.”

Mother’s awakening 

Griffith works the midnight shift, on the tortilla line in the annex building at General Mills. Gabriel worked on the cereal bars line in the main plant, Griffith said.

When she went to bed that Sunday, she sent her daughter a message: “Text me.”

“Usually, I’ll wake up to a zillion texts on my phone (that came in) while I was sleeping.”

Instead, “I got woke up to somebody beating on my window at 10 something in the morning (on Monday) to tell me I need to get to my daughter’s house. It was the worst feeling in the world driving up the (Sixth Street) hill, with the whole block in yellow tape. When the officer stopped me on the hillside,” to ask if I was Emily’s mother,  “he turned his head and looked down to the ground. I lost it. My head is still trying to figure it out. He told me she had been stabbed. I had no clue what was going on. He said (Gabriel) had a self-inflicted injury and they had transported him to a medical facility.”

Emily was 22 when she died, Oct. 13, 2025. She would have been 23 on the 10th of November. “Emily’s apartment only had one door in and out,” Griffith said. “Once he got in she didn’t have a way out. And when the cops came in he already knew he wasn’t getting out of there.”

Now Griffith is awaiting the results from her daughter’s autopsy. “The detective said she was stabbed in the back and front. There was a lot of bruising on her face.”

Last outing

Griffith and her daughter spent Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025 together. “We went to an escape room in St. Louis that night,” but at the time, Griffith didn’t notice anything amiss. “I didn’t pick up on her face that she was afraid.” They were together until after midnight, Griffith said.

“Sunday night I texted and checked on her. Normally she is back and forth (texting) with me,” but Griffith didn’t hear back. “I didn’t pry, I wanted to give her space. She had already spent one of her weekend days with me.”

Daughter lost

The ultimate reality of Griffith’s life is every mother’s nightmare. Her daughter is allegedly lost to a violent attack.

“The silence is so loud it is horrible. The whole world stops spinning. In this moment every thing you know has been ripped away. And nobody talks about it. People don’t know what to say.”

She lives with the silence of her loss. Most importantly, missing from life’s usual noise is her daughter’s voice.

A word for that

Griffith said there is a word: Vilomah

“Out of order; it is a word they use for parents that have lost a child. The break in the natural order of life.

“We are emotionally geared in our head, maternal, and that doesn’t shut off when you lose a child. Your body is trying to fix something that you can’t fix.

“It is 100 percent debilitating. I never saw this coming, it is very unimaginable. I lost both parents at a younger age, but this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had do.

“I honestly I feel like I was completely going crazy.”

Upcoming hearing

Gabriel Anthony Juarez has been incarcerated at the Marion County Jail in Palmyra since Oct.  14, 2025. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. Jan. 12, 2026, before Judge Jennifer Richardson in Associate Circuit Court at Hannibal.

New normal

“I have not been back to work yet; I’ve been on short term disability.” She was scheduled to go back on work on Jan. 5. “General Mills from a distance has been very supportive, to make sure I had all the time to take care of what I need to take care of.”

She has undergone counseling to help her deal with the grief and shock.

Emily’s brothers are struggling, Griffith said. “We welcomed this man into our home during their eight months together. The boys went fishing with him. It is hard to deal with the fact that a man so close could have (allegedly) murdered their sister. It is something they will struggle with for a long time.

Protest

On Friday, Jan. 2, 2026, Griffith led an informational protest in front of the Marion County Courthouse in Hannibal. Her goal is for the prosecutor to seek the death penalty in association with her daughter’s murder.

“A lot of time domestic cases get plea deals. But for the brutality,” in Emily’s case, “the planning that went into it, that’s not justice.

“I don’t want this man to walk into another home with another daughter, or a mother who has children. I don’t want another family to go through what I have.

“My boys will question for the rest of their lives, why this happened to their sister? I don’t wish this on anybody.”

From here on out, “I will analyze every conversation we had, every facial expression; wondering what I didn’t pick up on.

“When it happened, the Hannibal police department was kind of hush hush. I was completely broken; I started therapy. I realized I will have to shine some light on this to let (the court)  know I’m here, I’m standing for her. It is what she deserves.

Griffith wants the prosecutor, Luke Bryant, to seek the death penalty. This was the subject of the Jan. 2 protest at the Hannibal court house.

She also has a legislative agenda.

“Tennessee passed a law for the domestic registry online. As soon as I get my bearings, I will go to the capital and push for it in Missouri.

“If they had had it in Missouri, Emily could have been able to see if the suspect had any other domestic problems in a relationship. But there was no way she could have known that.

“The lady with Avenues (a domestic violence and sexual assault shelter and outreach program) is going to help me with it.

“The way Tennessee is set up, if a person has two convictions, they can be placed on a registry with permission of the victim. It would at least give them” information on someone from outside of the state. They do probation and it is wiped off their record. You can go to Casenet ( Missouri State Courts Automated Case Management System) and it’s not on there. The new registry would leave a trail that this is a violent person.”

Griffith doesn’t know anything about Juarez’s past relationships.

“Nobody has reached out to me. I don’t know who he has dated in the past. I can’t find anything on him at all. It is so hard with his being from outstate. Something tells me there is something with some past relationships.”

Preliminary hearing

She plans to be in attendance at the preliminary hearing on Jan. 12. “I have not seen him face-to-face,” since her daughter’s death, Griffith said.

The protest

She purposefully planned the protest on a day that Juarez wasn’t present at the courthouse.

“I didn’t want any safety concern when they were bringing him in and out of the courthouse,” she said. “I did it on a day he was not having a hearing. I wanted the judge’s full attention.”

She felt the support of people during Friday’s protest. “In the very beginning, at 8 a.m., there were between 20 and 30 people.” Some people had taken off from work, and had to leave. And it was cold outside. “There were maybe 10 of us at noon.”

She was bolstered by those who honked as they passed the courthouse protest.

“I felt support, people honking, people slowing down. Getting a lot of thumbs up. People asking questions because they didn’t know what was going on until they read the signs.”

Griffith’s gift

Griffith is thankful that her daughter left the “contact information” line blank on her employment documents.

If she had been called to the scene, “I probably would have broken the window out, and have been confronted with her body and him. (Emily) saved her mother from that, and she will never know it,” Griffith said.

Emily Traynor, 22, died of stab wounds on Oct. 13, 2025. Hannibal police discovered her body at her apartment in the 300 block of North Sixth. Photo contributed by Emily’s mother, Lisa Griffith.