Esther Maria Diaz-Lanz was born in Cuba in 1944 and moved to the United States as a teenager. She married Bermudian Jerome Perry, and the couple moved here in 1974 after completing college.

Ms Perry lived in Bermuda for about six years and worked for the then nascent Consumer Affairs Bureau. Friends and associates remember her as a committed activist.

?She had a very activist stance toward consumer affairs,? former MP Stuart Hayward said. ?I think she aroused the defensiveness and ire of the establishment because her attitude was that the consumer needed protection and it was up to the Consumer Affairs Bureau to provide that protection.

?She was a very spunky person. She had a clear sense of social justice and intended to move the agenda of social justice forward.?

Mr. Hayward said he was shocked to hear of Ms Perry?s demise. ?One feels some pain anytime someone one knows is murdered,? he said. ?It?s a blow to my own emotional system.?

Retired psychiatrist Emily Liddell, who sat on a National Trust committee with her, says that Esther Perry was ?very bright? and could be relied upon to see a project to completion.

She hosted a television spot for the Consumer Affairs Bureau, wrote articles for this newspaper and was a contributing author for a chapter in the book ?Bermuda?s Delicate Balance?.

She quit her Consumer Affairs post when her second daughter was born and moved on to work in human resources for the United States Naval Station. She then worked for fuel importers, Mundo Gas.

Ms Perry was one of the original founders of Amnesty International?s Bermuda section, but the group was temporarily disbanded over a dispute on the death penalty.