NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — A 32-year-old mother and winner of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case was found dead in her home Wednesday, Jezebel reported Friday.
“There is no criminality is suspected [sic] at this time,” NYPD said in a statement regarding Narkis Golan’s death, according to the outlet. However, it added that the office of the chief medical examiner is still determining the cause of death.
An investigation into the case is ongoing.
Per the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Golan’s favor delivered in June, she married Isacco Saada in Italy in 2015 and had a son with him the following summer. From the start of their relationship, Saada was violent and abusive to Golan, said Oyez.
“The two fought on an almost daily basis and, during their arguments, Saada would sometimes push, slap, and grab Golan and pull her hair,” said the Supreme Court ruling penned by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. “Saada also yelled and swore at Golan and frequently insulted her and called her names, often in front of other people. Saada once told Golan’s family that he would kill her. Much of Saada’s abuse of Golan occurred in front of his son.”
After Golan moved with her son to the U.S. in 2018, Saada asked a court to return their son to Italy under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
While the district court found that Italy was the child’s country of habitual residence for the purposes of the Hague Convention, “it also found that returning the child to Italy would subject him to a grave risk of psychological harm based on Saada’s abuse of Golan,” Oyez said.
Eventually, the district court ordered Saada to stay away from Golan. It also ordered him to pay her $30,000, and stipulated that he could visit their son only with Golan’s consent.
“After the district court coordinated with an Italian court to enforce the orders, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed,” according to Oyez.
With the Supreme Court ruling this summer, the case was sent back to 2nd Circuit Court for further proceedings, according to Cleveland Jewish News.
Judge Ann M. Donnelly of the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of New York decided to uphold the previous decision to send Golan’s child back to Italy, according to an Aug. 31 memorandum decision and order cited by the outlet.
“Why does the system ENABLE such a person to continue to cause my son and I harm through the courts after surviving such abuse,” wrote Golan in a Sept. 1 Facebook post. “Many women end up dead.”
Her sister, Morin Golan, told Jezebel via Zoom that the family urges the public not to speculate about Narkis Golan’s death at this time.
“We want to make sure the right information is shared, and that we’re all respectful about it, because the battle is not over,” she said. “There’s still a lot of work to be done, and we don’t want anyone’s narrative to affect our ability to continue to protect her son.”
Golan “was the survivor of such extreme abuse and control, and she’s a survivor of the court system too, which is a very difficult and challenging place for survivors of domestic violence,” Nicole Fidler – the director of pro-bono services at the Sanctuary for Families, who worked closely with Golan on her case for years – told Jezebel. “Her legacy is the Supreme Court case.”