Those girls in Springfield Gardens were just tight like that. They grew up together and went to school in the neighborhood. They became young women and found husbands and homes near where the Q5 bus stops. They were starting to have little ones of their own, right there in Springfield Gardens.

Marion Manning, known as Vick or Vickie, was no exception. She was close to her old friends, including one named Sean who had become her husband in April 1997. And her 2-year-old daughter, Lauryn, was so close to her in looks and in her heart that she sometimes called the girl Mini-Me. But her dreams carried her outside of Queens.

'She just wanted to see the world,' Mr. Manning said.

And she was taking her friends along. Mrs. Manning, an executive secretary at Marsh & McLennan, had arranged trips for her friends and their husbands to Cozumel, the Bahamas and Cancún. 'She would get the best deals; she would get everybody’s ticket,' said Tina Corbett, a friend.