Your Prayers are Needed

This past week I found out that a good friend of mine from junior high school was killed in August by her husband while the family was vacationing in Puerto Rico. Read the story below.

From Boston.com

Methuen man suspected in deaths of wife, stepchild, 4 other children survive attack in Puerto Rico

August 12, 2005

METHUEN -- The pleas of a little girl did not pierce the fog of rage fueling Jose Correa, 32, as he beat his wife and a stepdaughter to death in their small hotel room as the family vacationed in Puerto Rico, investigators said yesterday.

After killing his wife, Amy Vilkisius Correa, 32, the Methuen man tried early Tuesday to smother one of her sleeping children -- 10-year-old Chelsea Vilkisius -- with a towel, authorities said. He later beat the girl, who died from her injuries.

As police sought more answers yesterday, neighbors near the Correas's home in Methuen said they'd never seen any evidence of serious conflict in the family.

''They were lovely, lovely children, and she was a good mother," said one neighbor who declined to give her name.

Another neighbor who declined to be named said Amy Correa's two children from a previous marriage were loved by their stepfather.

The couple had three children together, police said.''

As far as they were concerned, Jose was Daddy," said the neighbor who also said she'd never witnessed the couple fighting.

Vito Vilkisius, the children's grandfather who lives in a home adjoining the family's duplex, declined to comment.

Jose Correa was jailed yesterday, facing charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder, and assault.

But even after Jose Correa surrendered on Tuesday, investigators were still trying to determine what happened, police investigator Hector Quinones said in a telephone interview.

The family was staying in hotel in Carolina, a suburb of San Juan, Puerto Rico's capital, where police say Jose Correa and his wife argued until 4 a.m. about a phone message from another woman.

Amy Correa accused her husband of having an affair and threatened to throw him out of the house when they returned to the United States, police said.

At that point, Jose Correa allegedly reached for a marble lamp, and twice bludgeoned his wife in the head as she lay on a sofa. He then went into a bedroom where his stepdaughters, Hailey, 12, and Chelsea were asleep, investigators believe.

But Chelsea fought off her stepfather as he tried to suffocate her with a towel. The struggle woke Hailey, who begged her stepfather to stop, Quinones said.

"She said, 'Daddy, Daddy, what are you doing? Daddy, you're going to kill Chelsea. Stop, Daddy.' When she saw that he didn't stop, she tried to talk to him, and tell him, 'Daddy, we love you. Daddy, stop, we love you,' " Quinones said.

Abandoning efforts to suffocate the girl, Correa grabbed a knife from the kitchen and again attacked the girl, police said. When Hailey intervened, he hit both of them with a lamp, Quinones said.

Correa then went after Hailey with another knife as Chelsea bolted for the front door. But Correa stopped her and threw her to the ground, just as he noticed the three other, younger, children had woken up, police said.

Correa then allegedly returned Chelsea and Hailey to bed, and went to sleep, Quinones said.Police said Correa woke up about 9 a.m. Tuesday, gathered Hailey and his three other children and left the hotel, intending to kill them and himself.

He called his brother, Jason Correa, in Boston, and another friend, who persuaded him to drive to the home of his parents, who live in Puerto Rico.

Once there, his father persuaded him to return to the hotel, where he met police, who had been summoned by a housekeeper who had discovered the bodies.
_________________________________________________________________

Amy's mother has taken in the 4 children. Please pray for her and the children and the rest of the family in their desperate time of need. Thank you!