Allison Guerriero

Allison was born October 2, 1973 at Overlook Hospital in Summit.  She grew up in Florham Park, where she went through the local grammar school system. She graduated from St. Elizabeth Academy in Convent, and attended Salve Regina College in Newport, R.I.

After trying her hand at different occupations, she found her niche in the Security field, working for the past eight years as a researcher and investigator for Guidepost Solutions. In addition, at the time of her passing she was also working as a researcher for author/publisher/radio talk show host Roger Stone.

Allison moved to Boynton Beach, FL in December 2023, where she really flourished, enjoying early morning walks along the beach before enthusiastically delving into her daily workload.

She was preceded in death by her mother, Cynthia Guerriero.  She leaves her father, William Guerriero of Florham Park, and her sister Heather Westhead and husband Michael, along with nieces Avery and Mary Westhead, of Harding.

Family and friends are welcome to gather on Thursday, September 3, 2026 from 5-8pm at Burroughs, Kohr & Dangler Funeral Home, 106 Main Street, Madison, NJ. A Mass of Christian Burial for Allison will be held on Friday, September 4, 2026 at 10:00am at St. Vincent Martyr Church, 26 Green Village Road, Madison, NJ. Interment will follow at St. Vincent's Cemetery, Madison, NJ. 

In lieu of flowers, the family kindly requests that donations be made to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation (t2t.org).

 

The following was written from the heart by one of Allison’s dearest friends, Ken Kurson:

Our family friend has died. The purpose of a eulogy is to memorialize. But how do you make permanent the memory of someone totally unforgettable?

Allison Guerriero was sui generis. I never met anyone like her. I can use adjectives to describe her – loyal, chaotic, irreplaceable, occasionally even brilliant. But those words fail to capture someone who boundlessly loved her family and hundreds of friends, supported them so intensely that their critics became Allison’s enemies, their struggles and hopes and aspirations her own.

To be loved by Allison Guerriero was a very special thing. And for all her meshegeneh bullshit, there was no one on earth who better understood, appreciated, and just plain loved my children like Allison. I will miss her forever. I already do.

My family met Allison on November 3, 2009. I had worked for the Chris Christie campaign and that was the election night party. Apparently, some guy was hitting on Allison. She noticed my “Rudy 2008” sweatshirt and instantly concluded that we shared identical values. She asked Becky and me if she could pretend to be with us and the kids to help shoo away her suitor. We basically became best friends immediately. She adored all three kids right away, and saw deeply into their respective personalities and shared penetrating insights.

Carrie told us a couple days ago, “The first time I met Allison, she told me she had been 22 for 12 years. Being approximately 6 at the time, I believed her.”

A few weeks later, Allison invited us to her home in Florham Park, and that was the first time we met Bill and Cynthia. Steve saw Mrs. Guerriero’s three gigantic hams on the buffet and asked “Are these hams kosher?” and that line became an instant classic that united our families.

The next summer, Allison told me I should hire her dad to repave my driveway. Just to set the scene, I loved knowing someone whose dad paved driveways for a living. I’m what you would call a “knowledge worker” – translation: pussy – and so is everyone I know. The thought that her dad would come pave my driveway blew my mind. I said of course let’s do it.

Bill came over with his kit and tar and whatever else goes into this operation and guess who was his assistant? Allison. Only instead of assisting, she sat on one of his buckets the entire time and looked at her phone and didn’t move. I thought, this is the kind of manual labor I actually understand. She told me she always came with him on his jobs and never did any work. I loved it. We all did.

Allison had been right. Although we came from different cultures, our values were indeed very much in synch. Allison gave my youngest daughter a notebook listing America’s most wanted terrorists. As news of a fresh kill hit the airwaves, Allison would drive over to our house so she and Chaya could sharpie an X through the photo on the page with that terrorist. Chaya was four.

She had lots of advice for the kids. "Don't go to any country ending in -stan," Carrie remembers Allison advising her at the ripe age of 7. She would take the girls shopping at Justice and there too shared her opinions with these young ears. Carrie told the story: “When I admired a black dress at one of New Jersey's overpriced, Jappy girl boutiques Allison would drive me to in her cigarette-smoke-filled sedan, she told me, ‘I don't like when little girls wear black, it's slutty.’”

Allison’s over-the-top interest in law-enforcement and fighting evildoers kept her adjacent to all kinds of characters who seemed like they were from 1950s era G.I. Joe type comic books. In 2010, Becky went to Israel and there was no way I could’ve watched these three on my own. Allison moved in and took expert care of them, taking the responsibility seriously, not just to make macaroni and cheese and get them to school, but to take them to the George Washington house and deepen their support for American values. Steve told me that what he remembered from those couple weeks was “watching Saving Private Ryan together and learning real patriotism and the meaning of respect.” What she remembered most about Steve was that she threw a football around with him. Allison famously hated sports but Steve encouraged her and said “good job.” With her trademark penetrating insight, she saw how rare and special it was for a boy to encourage his older and sports-averse family friend.

We brought her to Trump National in Bedminster and Steve told me she instructed him to bring a bottle of cold water to the Secret Service agent guarding the president’s house. “It’s hot and those guys are keeping the country safe,” Allison told Steve and he never forgot it. She adored the kids and I hope she understood how much they adored her back.

Later that year, Allison came over to join us for trick-or-treating. I have a picture of her with the kids in costume. Again, her insights into their characters were so valuable, as only a parent who feels his child is being truly seen can understand. She noted to me how Steve and Chaya in their excitement would run across the lawn to the next house, but Carrie would quietly walk up the walkway and ring the bell for her treat. “One day we will all be working for Carrie Kurson,” was her memorable phrase. Carrie was buoyed by that impression of her and relied on it during times of high school insecurity. Allison was her champion.

Carrie wrote to me, “I cherish my memories with Allison. She was around for my most formative years and left an impact I could not undo even if I wanted to. She showed up for me while my parents were splitting up, and in ways neither of my parents could have. I recall screaming and crying when Ally straightened my hair, and misbehaving horribly at the nail salon. I later came to appreciate her teaching me to look presentable and tolerate temporary discomfort. Allison even took me to get my Bat Mitzvah dress, a fitting trip given all she had taught me about how to be a ladylike, grown-up woman.”

One day, Allison and my mom took Chaya out. Allison snapped a photo of my mother and Chaya eating ice cream that I treasure, but the real action took place when they were leaving a different parking lot. It would be hard to declare a winner in a contest between my mother and Allison for most dangerous driver. As they pulled out of Marshalls, another car allegedly cut them off. They both laughed as they looked over and each was giving the driver the finger.

My mom died a few months later. We sat shiva in Chicago where she is buried, but I wanted one night in South Orange for her friends and family in New Jersey to have the opportunity to say goodbye. We drove home from Chicago to discover that Allison and our other friend Candice had arranged the entire thing with food for hundreds of people. That was Allison.

Countless Shabbat dinners asking my kids what was going on in their lives and truly listening and half the time jumping up from the table to announce she had to leave at once because a cop had been shot or some other emergency had arisen. It was never clear to me why that was an emergency for her, but my kids loved the drama and the action. And that was Allison, drama and action. She would mention out of the blue that she knew Suzanne Vega or the guy who sang “You had a bad day” and it was hard to tell if she was exaggerating until I’d run into her at the Havana Club and see her sitting with Rudy Giuliani and Bernie Kerik.

Sometimes Allison would show up at our house because she'd had a major blowout with her mother and needed our guest room for a few days. And then hours after vowing never to speak to each other again, one would call the other and they’d make up. Family.

After we got the horrible news, I told Bill that Cynthia being at my son’s bar mitzvah made it a tad easier to bear that my mother hadn’t quite lived to see it. The pride on Allison’s face as Steve read the Torah is an indelible image in my head. But then a literal image emerged. Allison stood up and took a photo, knowing full well that photography ran afoul of the rules for Shabbat. That’s the only picture we have of any of the kids on the bimah and I’m so grateful for it. Allison was a law and order obsessive. But she was willing to bend the rules in the service of the greater good.

One time Allison and I took the kids to the movies. Steve wanted to see Iron Man 2 and Carrie just reminded me the other night that the girls wanted to see Gnomeo & Juliet. I told Allison we were headed to Jersey Gardens because that was the only theater where the times lined up. She objected, referring to intel about gang activity in that area. Give me a break, this is New Jersey. 20 minutes into watching Iron Man, I went to get popcorn and soda for Steve and me. Allison was standing in line with the girls tucked behind her, screaming right in the face of some drug-addled guy who had tried to talk to one of the girls. "Don't you look at her, don't even think about her!" Allison hissed. Totally fearless mama lion. It was beautiful to behold. When the movies ended, the exit to the theater was blocked by 15 police cars because of gang activity. No one I ever knew derived more joy from an “I told you so” than Allison Guerriero.

We were around when Michael and Heather had Avery. Allison beamed with the radiance befitting a favorite aunt. And again that quality for seeing deeply into what was special about a child. She noticed how Avery took to Chaya, who was only a couple years older and how Avery called me “Chaya’s dad” as though that was my name.

Whenever I was honored at some banquet or had my arm twisted to buy a table, I would bring Allison. She loved to dress up, and for someone who was chronically broke she had an amazing collection of designer dresses. She would beam with pride if I was acknowledged or got to say a few words and instantly call her mother to share video of whatever moronic remarks I made.

When my marriage to Becky hit the rocks, it was as hard on Allison as it was on our kids. We both told her she didn’t have to choose and could like us both, but she felt pain over the rupture in our little group. She was struggling with her own demons at that time, and it was a difficult period for all of us, but every one of us loved her and valued her presence in our lives.

After that break up, when I started “getting back out there,” to use the horrible parlance, Allison met Melody. Without hesitation, she said stop dating, this is the one. All while remaining a fanatical supporter of Becky, despite their twin strong personalities sometimes making it difficult to connect.

When Allison’s mother died, Becky and I sat on the couch in the Guerriero living room. We had barely spoken to each other in a year, but we sat there with Cynthia dead on the kitchen floor and the sisters and Bill and a couple old-school priests. It felt like “family,” with all the pain and history that’s packed into that word.

This is hard terrain to navigate. I don’t think it does anyone any good to pretend Allison was easy to deal with all the time. We had our struggles as friends and quasi family. But the one place there was no doubt – and I speak for our entire family — is that we loved Allison and she loved us.

Allison started a new life in Florida and although I couldn’t see her as much, she seemed very happy and alive. Steve and Carrie and I drove up to Del Ray from Miami to see her one night. We smoked cigarettes and talked about old times and she delighted at what beautiful young adults these little kids had become. She never doubted that eventuality and I was grateful for the opportunity to tell her that her belief in them played a role in making it so.

There are tears rolling down my cheeks as I write these words. No surprise because it’s only been two days since Michael called me with the terrible news. But it’s not just the loss of this American original. It’s that Allison would’ve read this remembrance with greater care and sharper insights than just about anybody in my life. I suspect she played that role for a lot of her friends. Candice was devastated when I told her and so was Niles when she told him. When I called Roger Stone to tell him the bad news, he was thunderstruck. This is not a guy unaccustomed to startling developments.

After Allison’s mother died, I eulogized her on my Facebook page and Allison would repost my words every year on the anniversary. I told her dad this morning that Allison used to always say to me that she hoped I’d write her obituary. I had told her, you’re way younger than me, that day will never come. And now it has, and I am bereft. My heart breaks for Bill and Heather and the countless relatives and friends who were touched by this utterly unique person. May her memory be a blessing.