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'Just a Good Man'

Carmen Agnes sat in her home in Flushing, Queens, wondering what to say about her son, David. "I don't want to make him a saint," she said. "He was just a good man."

His photograph sat on her desk, and she described it. He wore a blue shirt and a mustache and stared straight ahead with a half-smile. The photograph, though, did not speak of his good nature, the devotion he showed to his daughter, Adrienne, 24, the intimate friendship he had with his sister Leslie, 43, the days on end that he spent at the side of the hospital bed of his father, Frank, 81.

Mr. Agnes, 46, was an assistant vice president at Cantor Fitzgerald. That's what his card says, a small, token leftover from a decent life. Perhaps, the possession that speaks more to the soul of her son, said Mrs. Agnes, 71, was a lock of his daughter's hair found in his safe deposit box. "That's the sort of thing a woman keeps," she said. "But that tells you what David's daughter meant to him."

Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on December 20, 2001.