A Bridgeport family familiar with grief is mourning the loss of a woman who died from COVID-19 during the surge of the Omicron variant.

Jamar Blakely tells News 12 Connecticut what his family has been going through over the past few days is very similar to the grief they have suffered time and again over the past decade.

Blakely says his cousin, 42-year-old Ninotchaka Gallup, also of Bridgeport, contracted COVID-19 at the height of the Omicron surge and died in the hospital on Tuesday.

He says what makes their family's case especially tragic is they have experienced several cases of murder in their family, including the well-known 2015 death of Gallop's mom, Minnie Lincoln. Her dismembered body was found in different parts of the area.

Family members say they are trying to raise money for Gallop's funeral expenses, but also to build awareness in the community and spare other families the kind of grief they have been going through.