Lynn woman’s loss, promising life remembered

LYNN – “It all took a couple of minutes,” Daniel Owen said Friday as he recalled the screams and explosion that ended friend and co-worker Xiomara Robles’ life three years ago tomorrow.Robles, a 20-year-old receptionist for Central Square Therapy Associates, was returning from lunch on that Wednesday afternoon in 2007 when estranged boyfriend Raymond Echavarria intercepted her outside 150 Market St. and dragged her into the front lobby elevator, leaving their 5-year-old son watching the doors close on his mother and father.Working in Associates’ office a floor above the lobby, Owen and attorney Philip Lamonica heard screams and cries for help. Lamonica ran down to the lobby while Owen rushed to the second-floor lobby landing.”We saw flames, then an explosion,” Lamonica said.They did not immediately know what happened but firefighters and police converging on the Market Street office quickly discovered that Echavarria ignited a container filled with gasoline inside the elevator, incinerating himself and Robles.The horror and shock of Robles’ death resonated across Lynn to Lynn Vocational Technical Institute, where Robles graduated, to Euclid Avenue where she lived with her family and to District Court where she took steps to protect herself against Echavarria before removing a restraining order against him.Upset over the end of their six-year relationship, Echavarria, 22, held Robles at knife point in January, 2007. He was arrested on kidnapping and assault charges, initially held without bail and eventually released on bail with a judge’s order to not contact Robles.Robles worked for Associates for two years. Her boss, Dr. Robert Page, said Robles quickly grasped the skills required to be a medical receptionist.”She made a wonderful first impression. She was very understated and always learning,” Page said, “She was someone starting off in life.”Associates specializes in counseling individuals and couples with a variety of problems including relationship difficulties.”This is what we try to counter in people’s lives. To have this happen on our doorstep was incredibly ironic,” Page said.Page and his workers keep a photograph of Robles in the office to remember her. Owen has stayed in touch with her family. Her now 8-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter live with their grandmother.”This was such a personal tragedy. Over the years maybe it’s been forgotten (by others but we mark each anniversary),” Page said.