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Family of slain Plano jogger determined to continue legacy

"You only die when people forget about you. Our goal is to make sure we remember her," said Sarmistha Sen's husband Arindam Roy.

PLANO, Texas — Arindam Roy says the pain of losing his wife gets more manageable over time. He spends most days being the best father he can to his two boys, 12-year-old Neil and 6-year-old Ryan.

Sarmistha Sen was jogging the Chisolm Trail in their Plano neighborhood on an early August morning when she was killed.

Plano police arrested Bakari Abiona Moncrief, 29, on charges of capital murder. He is being held in the Collin County Detention Center. 

"Instead of focusing on what we lost, I am focusing on what we have," said Roy.

Sen was a clinical research manager at UT-Southwestern. She and her team worked specifically in the radiation/oncology department. Dr. Puneeth Iyengar tells WFAA that Sen was very "driven" and motivated to work in cancer because her mother was a cancer survivor. 

"Everything revolved around the family and family values, that came first," Roy said.

UT-Southwestern will spearhead a $500,000 endowment in Sen's name. The family had started a public fund that had raised close to $50,000 and the family had agreed to match the amount raised. 

Roy tells WFAA that UT-Southwestern covered the rest of the endowment. Iyengar tells WFAA that the money will be focused in areas of cancer research, specifically investing in developing young clinical researchers.

"She was just a fundamentally caring individual," said Iyengar.

Neil had started a YouTube channel just before his mother's death. He intends on continuing to put up content related to how he's coping with the loss.

"Our mom hasn't left us forever. She's still here," said Neil.

The family is currently in talks with the city of Plano about putting up a bench along the Chisolm Trail in Sen's honor. The hope is to have it up in the next two to three months. The family hopes to also continue an annual tradition of doing a community walk/run to raise awareness about the incident.

"You only die when people forget about you. Our goal is to make sure we remember her," said Roy.

    

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