The stories that stick with us: In the wake of a tragedy, strangers step in to help orphaned girls

Cook County courts is a bleak beat. Justice - when it prevails - is rooted in loss and frequently in tragedy seeing as how it results from crime.

In 2013, after five years on the beat I've covered for 15 years, I still shed tears listening to victims' families express the deepest pain imaginable.

That was the case when I listened to then 11-year-old Greta Ramirez testify to overhearing her father stab her mother to death in the family's Des Plaines area home on Valentine's Day 2011.

Greta Ramirez was 9 and her sister Karen was 19 when their father stabbed his wife to death after tension over household and financial matters strained the couple's 26-year marriage. Convicted of murder, their father was sentenced to 45 years in prison in 2012.

Ordinarily, that would be the end of the story. But a year later, an editor suggested I follow up with the girls. What I found warmed my heart.

Rarely has the kindness of strangers been more evident than in the case of these two orphaned sisters. On their own, they were not alone.

Within days of their mother's death, kindly strangers began rallying around Karen and Greta. And the bonds the siblings forged with the strangers-turned-friends lasted for years.

At the request of a then-supervisor with the Rolling Meadows state's attorney, Jeffrey Koppy stepped in to represent the girls, whose parents had entered the country without legal documentation. Koppy at the time was a partner with the powerhouse Chicago law firm Jenner & Block and chairman of its pro bono committee.

Koppy helped sort the girls' immigration status, obtaining a work permit for Karen and four-year visas that enabled them to apply for green cards. He arranged for the transfer of Greta's guardianship to Karen, which was instrumental in them keeping their home, and he and his colleagues contributed enough money to pay their rent for a year.

Mary Ellen Esser, principal at Admiral Richard E. Byrd Elementary School in Elk Grove Village, and Liz Greenberg, Greta's fourth-grade teacher, helped lead fundraising efforts that saw fellow teachers, staff members and parents provide the girls food, clothing and other necessities. Esser helped organize their mother's funeral and arranged for a counselor for Greta.

All three adults welcomed the girls into their homes. Their combined efforts ensured the sisters would remain together, which was all Karen and Greta wanted.

Most court stories - like that of the Ramirez sisters - are rooted in tragedy and loss. But theirs confirms compassion and kindness endures and, sometimes, during our darkest days, it is a stranger's hand that guides us toward the light.

• Senior Writer Barbara Vitello has worked for the Daily Herald since 1997.