(previous)
According to the statement, the board is working with community leaders to set up a fund that would help the family pay funeral expenses.
“It is our hope that the Revelus family can eventually find healing and that the Milton police officers who responded with valor to this tragedy can also find peace,” the statement read. “Our thoughts and our prayers are with [them] while we continue to seek to understand how such a tragedy could have happened.”
In addition, Local Motion, which employs the victims’ father, has set up a fund for the family. Donations can be made to the Revelus Family Fund, c/o Citizens Bank, 540 Granite St., Braintree, MA 02184.
The lone survivor of the attacks is also on the minds of residents.
Saraphina Revelus, 9, a student at Tucker School, was taken to Boston Medical Center following the attack. She underwent surgery Monday and returned to Milton on Tuesday. She is expected to fully recover from her injuries.
Some of the Tucker teachers tried to visit her at the hospital on the night of the attack but School Superintendent Mary Gormley told them the hospital wouldn’t allow them to see her.
Administrators were at the hospital that night “just to tell [the family] we’re here when they want us,” said Gormley.
Tucker Principal Drew Echelson said Saraphina, who visited her school Tuesday, has a “wonderfully close relationship with teachers and staff.”
Meanwhile, Police Chief Richard Wells Jr. said he and his department have been overwhelmed by the support they are receiving from the community and from people all over the world.
“The notes, the e-mails, society as a whole is showing compassion and kindness,” Wells said, adding, “People see the police as the most visible form of government. We are the order-maintenance people.
“Usually it is a thankless job. And 99 percent of what we do is service-related. It is that 1 percent that separates us. We see a lot of death. Sometimes it’s an 87-year-old woman who was trying to get to the phone and has been dead for 10 days before the police are called to break the door down.
“I am grateful for what the members of our department did in responding to this tragedy. I am proud of how they handled themselves.
“Their lives have been altered as well as the lives of the Revelus family. And now, because of what transpired, their lives are entwined. Everything that young girl [Saraphina] will do is a direct result of their actions.”
The chief said he is sorry the four members of his department who were the first responders, who have received counseling and are on paid leave, have not been able to see the public reaction.
“It renews your faith to see the support,” Wells said.
Saraphina’s sisters, 17-year-old Samantha “Princesse” Revelus, a senior at Milton High School, and Bianca Revelus, who turned 5 on March 27, were fatally wounded in the attack.
Police say 23-year-old Kerby Revelus killed the two with a kitchen knife and was stabbing Saraphina when he was fatally shot by officers who burst into the house at 7 Belvoir Road. According to police, the argument with his sisters began as a fistfight with neighbors the previous day. Reports also indicate Revelus had previously been arrested twice on weapons charges, in Randolph and Boston, and had spent time in prison.
Deputy Police Chief Paul Nolan said Revelus had been known to Milton police after a September 2004 arrest at the same Belvoir Road home for hitting another sister. Jessica Revelus, 21, has since moved out of the home to raise her baby.
Jessica told The Boston Globe that Kerby and Bianca were her biological siblings. Their parents adopted Samantha and Saraphina and brought them from Haiti around 2004. Saraphina’s father is the nephew of Samantha’s father, who died in Haiti.
According to Nolan, at least two of the four officers who responded to a call on Belvoir Road late Saturday made the decision to take a life in order to save another.
For that, he called their actions “absolutely heroic.”
“I think clearly their actions were both decisive and courageous,” Nolan told the Times on Monday. “They absolutely saved the life of a 9-year-old girl.”
The girls’ parents, Vronze and Regine Revelus, were not at home when the attack occurred. The girls’ grandmother was on the first floor of the split-family home, where she lives. The family had been living in the home for decades, Nolan said.
According to reports, the family had been celebrating Bianca’s fifth birthday over the weekend. The family had recently filed to sign her up for kindergarten, school officials said.
Nolan said Samantha made the call to police before handing the phone to Saraphina.
At a March 29 press conference, school officials reflected on the events of the previous day.
Gormley said she wanted students to understand they’re safe. “This is a horrific deed … but you’re safe when you go home,” she said.
Dr. John Drottar, principal of Milton High,
said, “Nothing brought this to anybody’s radar. I
think it was an incomprehensible tragedy. I just
don’t understand how something like this could have happened.”
The next day, Monday, grief counselors were helping teachers and students who were also grappling with that question. A moment of silence was held at Milton High that morning in honor of Samantha, an honor student whose activities at the school included membership in the Poetry Club. (See story on Page 19.)
On Monday night, former Milton public school teacher Maria Trozzi, of Boston Medical’s Good Grief Program – who was flown to Colorado in 1999 to administer crisis management consultation to parents, caregivers and educators of Columbine High School – led a forum at Milton High School for parents, students and teachers. (See story on Page 22.)
Gormley said school officials also have received an overwhelming amount of support in the form of hundreds of e-mails, including a message from Gov. Deval Patrick.
“You realize what community means,” she said. “We are not alone, and the family is not alone.”
The wake for Kerby, Samantha and Bianca will be held Friday from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Joseph Russo Funeral Home, 814 American Legion Highway, Roslindale. The funeral service will be Saturday at 9:30 a.m. at Jubilee Christian Church, 1500 Blue Hill Ave., Mattapan.
(Times staffers Scott MacKeen, Kathy Kurtz Ferrari
and J. Michael Whalen contributed to this story.)