Luis Munoz furiously pedaled his bike down Witherspoon Street in Princeton with a pit in his stomach.
His father hadn’t been heard from in over a day and didn’t show up for work that Tuesday. The Princeton High senior stopped at the corner of Witherspoon and MacLean and rushed into his father’s apartment building. He pounded on his father’s first floor door, but there was no answer and Munoz didn’t have a key.
He rushed back outside, frantically trying to find a way in. Then, he saw a window into his father’s bedroom. Munoz peeled off the window, stepped inside and saw his father face down on the floor - motionless.
Juan Jose Munoz Castillo was pronounced dead at the age of 55 on Nov. 12, 2019.
A feeling of shock, fear and anger overtook Munoz. He only felt that feeling once before.
In October of 2018, his brother, Juan J Munoz II, hadn’t come home in a couple of days. He died of an overdose at the age of 25. Munoz identified the body to authorities. Juan J Munoz II was buried on Nov. 12, 2018.
In the blink of an eye, Munoz was the man of the family. The 18-year-old was responsible for his mother, grandmother and seven-year-old sister Jennifer.
His mind was filled with questions that couldn’t be answered and Munoz fell into dark places from time-to-time. But he accepted help, fought through the pain, provided for his family and excelled as a role model for his younger sister.
Tuesday evening, Munoz’s name was called out among the other 359 graduates from Princeton High School. He often talked with his dad about celebrating the accomplishment together. While his father wasn’t there in person, Munoz knew that he wouldn’t be the least bit surprised at how much his son stepped up in the face of tragedy.
“I know that wherever my dad is, he’s proud of me,” Munoz said. “He knows that I’m capable of taking care of myself and he knows that I know my right from wrong. The day my dad passed away, he left with confidence in me.”
FINDING AN OUTLET
During the winter of 2018, Princeton High School band director Joe Bongiovi received a phone call way after hours. It came from one of the high school’s custodians saying that a student had been going into the band room at night to play the drums and had been doing so for the entire week.
That student was Munoz.
Although a little surprised by it, Bongiovi saw no problem as long as it was fine with the custodians. What started out as an hour of drumming quickly turned into sessions well into the night and gave Munoz a much-needed outlet.
If having the burden of losing his brother wasn’t enough, the teenager was up to his eyes in responsibility.
After school, he took care of his sister and worked at a local Italian restaurant, Trattoria Procaccini. By the time he returned to his apartment, it was too late to practice the drums so he took it upon himself to return to school and let loose.
“It became therapeutic for him,” Bongiovi said. “He’d practice until they kicked him out. He found ways to get everything that he needed to do done. Playing the drums was his time.”
That self-therapy was crucial.
His brother’s death was a shock to his whole family.
Juan II had recently gotten out of a rehab facility in Princeton and said he was clean, but Munoz had a feeling that something wasn’t right. Then, Juan II didn’t come home one night, which wasn’t totally out of the ordinary, but when that one night turned into two, then three with no word from Juan II, Munoz knew that something was wrong.
Munoz and his grandmother tracked his brother’s phone to New Brunswick, where Munoz needed to identify his brother’s body.
“It’s a sight that I’m never going to forget,” Munoz said. “It was honestly as difficult as breaking into my father’s house and finding him on the floor. I don’t how to put it into words, but it was shocking. It was very scary. It was definitely scary.”
That image stuck with Munoz and will forever.
Even though he was distraught, Munoz surrounded himself with teachers, friends and mentors that helped him through the difficult time - even if that just meant letting him into the school after hours to play the drums.
NOT AGAIN
Exactly a year after burying his brother, Munoz found his father dead in his apartment.
It was the worst possible case of déjà vu.
“In my 21 years teaching and coaching, I can’t think of another kid that has been through what he’s been through in the last two years,” Assistant Principal and former wrestling coach Rashone Johnson said. “It’s one thing to have gone through this throughout the course of your life. It’s another to have gone through this two years back-to-back.”
This time, Munoz looked to athletics to guide him.
He had taken his junior year off from wrestling because he was afraid to fail but returned to the gym as a senior looking to overcome that fear.
The Princeton High School gym’s white walls hanging with blue pennants honoring past hometown heroes and worn brown bleachers was exactly where he did that.
It wasn’t some page out of a wrestling storybook with Munoz going undefeated and winning a state championship, instead, it was about him getting back on the mats and persevering through the most difficult time of his life.
“During wrestling practices, Mr. Johnson would tell us to take the challenges that we have and use those issues as a springboard,” Munoz remembered. “Our anger, emotions, whatever it was, he wanted us to use them as a springboard and leave it all on the mat. He always said that you can either be the hammer or the nail. We got to choose which one. We got to choose.”
Munoz chose the hammer and the countless hours of work put in throughout the season culminated into a magical moment on senior night.
On Thursday, Feb. 13, 2020, Munoz anxiously waited for the 126-pound weight class to be called. Finally, his name was announced. The stands were filled with his friends, classmates and his littler sister all screaming his name. Two seconds into the second period, Munoz pinned his opponent causing another raucous uproar from the crowd.
As the referee raised Munoz’s hand, his eyes zeroed in on one person.
“That was my sister’s first time coming to one of my matches and I could feel the warmth coming off of her,” he said. “She was jumping up and down. I remember looking at her when I got my hand raised and it was great. I always want my sister to look up to me so I couldn’t lose.”
Luis Munoz (left) wrestling for Princeton High School as a senior.
BECOMING AN INSPIRATION
Although Munoz was forced to rapidly grow up, becoming a role model was something he had been working towards for a while.
He always wanted his little sister Jennifer to look up to him in all aspects of life and he wanted to mentor her the same way that the Princeton community mentored him.
As a child, he often wandered the town’s parks alone. Concerned parents took him in, made sure he was ok and gave him a snack. Those same people guided him through elementary school. At John Witherspoon Middle School, he met Kevin Wortham and joined the Minding Our Business entrepreneurship program - which he is still involved with. He also met English teacher Sharrie Barish, who was like a second mom to him providing support and motivation.
The list of motivators only grew in high school with Bongiovi, Johnson and fellow music director Scott Grimaldi among the many to support Munoz during his darkest days.
All of those voices helped mold Munoz into a Princeton High School graduate that will be studying nursing at Rider University and more importantly, become a positive image of success for his sister to follow.
“I have to make sure that whenever I’m with my sister, that I’m on my A-game,” he said. “Even when she’s not there, I need to make sure that she knows that I’m doing good things. If she knows that, then she’ll follow the same steps. It makes me so happy knowing that I’m making an impact in her life.”
No matter what life threw at Munoz, he came out the other side stronger. He learned what feelings of true fear and despair were and overcame them for himself, for his sister, for his family and for his future.
“Honestly this was God,” he said. “He lined everything up in my life. As unfortunate as it was, it has made me into a person that can really face anything. At this point, I don’t know what else can be thrown at me, but I’m going to take it by the head and knock it out.”
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Richard Greco covers Mercer County news for NJ.com and may be reached at rgreco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @Richard_V_Greco. Find NJ.com on Facebook.