RIP Anita Bitri Prapaniku, Albanian singer

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/20/nyregion/20dead.html
Published: October 20, 2004 in the New York Times newspaper

"Weeks Before Detectors Become Law, Fumes Kill Singer and Family"
By SHAILA K. DEWAN

well-known Albanian singer, her 7-year-old daughter and her mother were found dead in their home on Staten Island yesterday morning, victims of carbon monoxide poisoning, the authorities said.

Their deaths came as New Yorkers fired up their heaters against the season's first chill, and less than two weeks before a city law requiring carbon monoxide detectors in residences will go into effect. The house, where mother and child slept in the dormered attic bedroom, had a very high level of carbon monoxide, a Fire Department spokesman said - four or five times the amount that would prompt firefighters to order an evacuation.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Buildings said that the exact cause of the carbon monoxide buildup was still under investigation, but that it appeared to be related to a new patio that friends said had been poured in recent months. The vents for the basement furnace had been covered with plastic bags to keep the wet concrete out, said the spokeswoman, Ilyse Fink.

The new law will require detectors for carbon monoxide - a deadly, odorless gas - in virtually all residences beginning Nov. 1, with exceptions for the few that do not use fossil-fuel-burning heaters. Before yesterday, there had been four accidental carbon monoxide deaths in the city this year.

Neighbors and friends gathered outside the family's pink stucco house on Ocean Avenue in the cold drizzle yesterday, many of them trying to comprehend the magnitude of the loss, some already planning how to raise money to send the bodies of the singer, Anita Bitri Prapaniku, 36, her daughter, Sibora Nini, and her mother, Hasbije Bitri, 60, to Albania to be buried. The singer had lost her husband to cancer only a few months earlier, friends said.

Many in the crowd were Albanian musicians who often accompanied Ms. Bitri (she was best known by her maiden name). Their children had played with her daughter, a second grader at a nearby public school.

They said that Ms. Bitri came to the United States eight years ago for a gig at a New York club, and had decided to stay. "In Tirana, I knew her only as an idol," said Vait Hajdaraj, who eventually became part of her band, and who also decided to stay in the States after the gig. He said Albanian-Americans welcomed her here. "When we first came, the big place where we were performing was packed," he said.

At home, she had been well known, performing every December at the national music festival. "She won a prize so many times," said Edmond Xhani, a guitarist. "First place, second place..."

She went to Albania several months ago in preparation for the release of her new CD, which she had planned to promote there. "No one should think that in America opportunities are easily available," she told an Albanian interviewer, according www.parajsa.com, a Web site. They are "even more difficult when living alone like myself. The only thing that's kept me going here has been my profession.''

She returned to the United States after only a day, her friends said, when she learned that her husband had died. "Albania miss her," Mr. Hajdaraj said. "You would see her every night on TV, like here you see Madonna, Britney Spears, you know."

Here, Ms. Bitri's life was far more modest. She had regular work at weddings and parties, helped her daughter with her schoolwork, and worked on her CD's and three promotional videos to be shown in Albania. Her husband, Luan Prapaniku, had owned a house painting business before he got sick, friends said.

"Her life was very simple," Mr. Hajdaraj said. "It's not like she's going out in public and bragging herself, 'I'm this and I'm that.' ''

Her mother was "like grandmas are," said Maksim Vathi, another musician. "Very loving, helping, caring."

Matthew Iacovelli, 26, a neighbor, also stood outside. "The little girl, she didn't even get a chance to do anything," he said. "She didn't even get a chance to live her life."

Like her mother, Sibora had musical talents and had been learning to play the piano. Her name means "like snow," Mr. Vathi said. "And she was like snow, very beautiful. She had a clear face," he said.

If Ms. Prapaniku's life was an almost suburban routine, on stage she was a dynamic presence who was very much in demand at weddings, parties and festivals. She favored white dresses and heels, and knew pop numbers as well as traditional Albanian dances like the shota and the napolon.

She was staking her dreams on her new CD, for which she wrote the words and music, her friends said. She was considering the title, "Nothing is Impossible."

One of the tracks on the CD was a duet with Sibora. "The song was saying, "When I grow up, I would like to sing like you," Mr. Vathi said.