Murders without a gun...

twoclones · Apr 1, 2009

This happened days ago yet I hadn't heard of it until now. Apparently cutting off a little girl's head isn't as newsworthy as shooting her to death.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_...police_mass_man_kerby_revelus_kills_2_si.html

Police: Mass. man, Kerby Revelus, kills 2 sisters, beheading 5-year-old in front of police
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Monday, March 30th 2009, 11:48 AM

MILTON, Massachusetts - With her long hair and model's poise, 17-year-old Samantha Revelus exuded confidence when she recited an original poem Saturday afternoon about a strong woman who stood up to "ignorant souls."

An hour after she finished rehearsal for an upcoming poetry reading, Samantha was dead on the floor of her family's home. She had been stabbed, police say, by her 23-year-old brother. Kerby Revelus then decapitated his 5-year-old sister as her birthday cake from the day before sat on the kitchen table, before turning on his 9-year-old sister, who called police.

Responding officers broke down the door and shot him dead. The first one inside had witnessed 5-year-old Bianca's beheading.

The 9-year-old, Sarafina, was hospitalized Sunday with defensive wounds to her hands and stab wounds in her abdomen and one of her legs.

"In policing, we see the raw human emotion every day, but to think that a human being could afflict such an atrocious, violent act on his own family is unbelievable," Milton police Chief Richard G. Wells Jr. said Sunday.

Investigators believe Revelus had been agitated since Friday night, when he got in a fistfight with a neighbor in this upscale suburb that is also home to Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. Revelus, investigators believe, may have targeted Samantha in the fallout from the episode.

"Blows were exchanged," Wells said. "I don't know the cause of it, but we're confident that did happen. He had been agitated in the hours that followed that, going into the day and last night."

A neighbor, Norm Walsh, said the family had lived in the neighborhood for over 20 years and was warm. They were of Haitian descent, like many in a neighborhood where Creole is spoken alongside English.

"The family is a solid family. Both parents worked; good kids. Completely makes no sense," he said.

Investigators believe Revelus attacked his siblings with a household knife while their grandmother, who neighbors say lives on the first floor, was doing laundry in the basement. The children's parents were away; their mother is a nurse at a Boston hospital, Wells said.

Revelus had recently served jail time on a gun charge, Wells said, but the details would not be released until courts opened Monday. Neighbors said Revelus was in a car that was pulled over by police and from which one occupant threw a gun into a sewer.

Police had been called to the family's house in 2004 after a domestic violence report that Revelus had punched a woman living there, Wells said.

Samantha's classmates referred to her by her nickname, "Princess," and remarked at her grace, class and friendliness. She had been one of about 20 students who had been at the high school Saturday afternoon to rehearse for the poetry jam on Thursday, and had practiced for a school fashion show earlier that morning.

"She had a stage presence like you couldn't believe," classmate Kassi Stein said