[G]rief-stricken friends and family members gathered Thursday evening to remember three women who were allegedly gunned down by a relative on Aug. 7.
About 100 people attended a vigil at the home on Airport Road where the bodies of Julie Falzarano, 73, and her two daughters, Rhonda Herring, 48 and Regina Herring, 43, were found Saturday morning.
Jody Herring, 40, is the prime suspect in the shooting deaths of her aunt and cousins, and has been charged with first degree murder for the slaying of Lara Sobel, a social worker who worked for the Vermont Department for Children and Families. Police say Herring allegedly went on a shooting spree after she lost custody of her 9-year-old daughter.
Tiffany Herring, 23, who found the bodies of her mother, aunt and grandmother on Saturday morning, told the Burlington Free Press that Jody Herring phoned her mother on Friday morning and told her to stop calling DCF.
Family members and friends wept as they placed carnations and lilies on the front porch of the farmhouse in Berlin where the three women lived.
Mourners lit candles and watched as three red heart-shaped sky lanterns floated over nearby fields and disappeared over the horizon. They listened to Carl Hilton VanOsdall, a pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in Barre, pray for the deceased and for the family.
“So God we gather here in this place that looks and feels a lot different than it looked and felt just a week ago,” VanOsdall said. “We come with heavy hearts. We come to pay witness to people who have passed on — Rhonda, Regina and Julie specifically today — we’re grateful, oh God, for the gift of their lives.
“We ask, oh God, for the wisdom to know what to do in these days of sadness, hurt, confusion, anger and rage,” VanOsdall said. “We pray for wisdom that it might settle among us and that we might somehow see paths of peace and that we might know a way to move forward just one small step at a time, just one minute at a time.
VanOsdall invited people to share memories. One friend called out that she would miss Julie, Rhonda and Regina. Another remembered playing cards with Rhonda and Regina.
“I remember Rhonda being a mom who really wanted to do the right thing,” another woman named Suki said. “She really worked hard to do the right thing when things were not right. She was strong and she was determined.”
Krissy Johnson, a friend of the family from Derby, organized the vigil on Facebook and she was overwhelmed by the number of people who came out to remember the lives of the women. The vigil was held nearly a week after the shootings, she said, because of the police investigation.
“It needed to be done,” Johnson said. “Looking at the amount of people who could actually make it, it was very much needed. Something had to be done. One life isn’t worth more than another. They will never be forgotten.”
Johnson grew up with Julie, Regina and Rhonda, and, she said, “They were so loved, and so well known.”
“Regina would talk your ear off,” Johnson said. “They had a lot to say and they weren’t bashful about it.”
Johnson is frustrated, she said, with the way the governor responded to “all of this.” “He’s the governor of our state, he’s supposed to keep people together, not push them apart with his comments,” she said.
Gov. Peter Shumlin attended the vigil for Lara Sobel on Sunday and in his remarks chastised commenters on Facebook for demonizing social workers, and he urged Vermonters to respect the work of state employees. The governor ordered the Statehouse flags flown at half staff in memory of Sobel. Shumlin was not present at the gathering for Herring family.
Johnson said Julie, Rhonda and Regina “deserve the same amount of respect as the social worker or anyone,” and she said the governor should lower the flags at the Statehouse for them as well, “but that won’t happen.”
Correction: The relationship of Tiffany Herring to Rhonda Herring, Regina Herring and Julie Falzarano was incorrect in an earlier version of this story.
