Cryptic talk, despair, then an afternoon of horror
Milton neighbors, family describe a troubled brother
By Globe Staff | March 30, 2009
Kerby Revelus often seemed confused to neighbors and friends after he returned home several months ago from a stint in jail.
Neighbor Abdul Kamara said that some mornings, Revelus would stroll down Belvoir Street as people headed to work, talking nonsensically and taking swigs from a bottle in a brown bag. Sometimes he would talk cryptically about God's purpose for him, Kamara said, and other times he acted edgy and hostile.
"Sometimes he was friendly, and sometimes he would just lose it," said Kamara, 24. "Ever since he came out [of jail] the second time, he wasn't the same."
A clearer picture emerged yesterday of Revelus, the 23-year-old who had been depressed recently because his criminal record was preventing him from finding a job, a relative said.
Milton police said Revelus stabbed two of his sisters to death and attacked a third in their family home late Saturday afternoon. The horrific nature of the crime, Milton Police Chief Richard G. Wells said, is likely to haunt investigators for years to come.
After receiving a report of a domestic disturbance at the Revelus home, officers arrived at the house in less than a minute, Wells said. They kicked in an upstairs door, only to watch Revelus, armed with a kitchen knife, grab his 5-year-old sister, Bianca, and sever her head. Then he moved to the bedroom and turned the knife on 9-year-old Saraphina and began stabbing her. A third sister, 17-year-old Samantha, already had been stabbed to death in the same room.
Wells said phone tapes recorded the arrival of police on the second floor and officers ordering Kerby Revelus to "Stop!" and "Get down!"
Kerby Revelus didn't listen. "It was like the officers weren't even there," he said.
Police shot Kerby Revelus dead, Wells said, and one of the officers rushed Saraphina out of the house, bloody and crying for her mother, but alive.
She was taken to Boston Medical Center with multiple stab wounds. Police said yesterday that she was recovering and with her parents. Police attempts to resuscitate Samantha were unsuccessful.
On Friday, the household had been celebrating the youngest girl's 5th birthday. Wells said that later the same night, Kerby Revelus got into a fistfight with a neighbor. Investigators are trying to determine why, Wells said, but the dispute somehow triggered the violent attack on his sisters Saturday.
"We don't know the reasons for the fight," Wells said yesterday. "I'm just not sure and the only eyewitness left is the 9-year-old girl."
Five officers have been placed on paid leave, Wells said, and have received counseling for stress and trauma. The officer who witnessed the attack on Bianca was a 10-year veteran of the department. Another officer is a rookie who has been with the department six months.
Revelus had at least two prior gun charges. In 2005, he allegedly showed a gun clip in an attempt to intimidate a package store clerk in Randolph who refused to serve him. In 2007, he was arrested with two other men in a car on Hebron Street in Boston and charged with unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, and unlawful possession of a loaded firearm.
Revelus had been depressed in recent weeks because the weapons charge on his record was preventing him from finding a job, friends and relatives said.
Fritzner Oxilas, an uncle of Revelus who drove from New York City yesterday to be with the family, said he spoke to Kerby two weeks ago and that Kerby said he "felt like he was nothing."
"He said, 'Everywhere I applied, they don't want to take me because I was in jail. I'm trying to change my life,' " but nobody wanted to help him, Oxilas said. "I told him, 'Don't say that. You got your family behind you.' "
Another Revelus sibling, Jessica, 21, of Hyde Park, said her parents, Regine, 42, who works at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Vronze, 45, who is a bus driver for Local Motion, a private transport company, were at work when the attack occurred.
The mother is beside herself, Jessica said. "She is just like, 'I can't believe I have to bury three kids.' " Her father, Jessica said, was especially attached to his youngest, Bianca.
Jessica said 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 Samatha's father, who died in Haiti.
"Samantha was into fashion and had a 3.6 GPA," she said. "She liked to write poetry and was quiet."
She added that Bianca liked to watch cartoons and was excited to start kindergarten next year. "Bianca, she turned 5 on Friday. 5 for one day."
Jessica said she was planning to buy Samantha her prom dress next weekend. She said Kerby "listened to rap music. When he got out of jail, it definitely changed him. Jail made him worse. He was a badass and all, but jail, it . . . wasn't a good place for him."
Alpha Kamara, who lives next door to the Revelus house, said he went to high school with Kerby Revelus and that he had been acting strangely, waxing philosophical about the meaning of life, telling weird stories, even stealing a pair of his underwear.
"We were talking Friday and he's telling about life, questioning people's lives and talking about Jesus. He was talking crazy," Kamara said.
Conversations with Kerby Revelus grew increasingly irrational, and Alpha Kamara said he seemed to grow detached. Kamara said the two had recently been talking about their former girlfriends when Kerby Revelus suddenly stopped and started talking about religion.
"He starts telling me about death and that same stuff, what the meaning of life is, how to live, 'Do you believe in Jesus,' making the sign of the cross, kissing the cross, and everything."
The Kamaras said they were not involved in the fistfight on Friday.
Alpha Kamara said that 10 minutes before the attack on the sisters, Kerby Revelus had been talking with him in a similar vein. Kamara said he left Revelus, but when he went back out a short time later, he saw police.
"I see blood, and I started thinking, the way he's been talking, he probably killed the kids and killed himself," he said.
Oxilas said he was at a loss to explain what triggered Saturday's violence. Family members gathered yesterday at an aunt's house nearby to mourn together.
"I know he's had his problems in and out, but nothing that would indicate anything like that," said Norm Walsh, a neighbor who said he has lived two houses away from the Revelus family for more than 20 years. "As far as I know, they were a great family."
Walsh said Kerby Revelus lived in the home with his family until his arrest when he "dropped off the scene."
A MySpace page that appeared to have belonged to Kerby Revelus listed his nickname as "Sparx" and shows his liking for rap and gang culture. One video on the site, "Gucci Mane Glockumentary," features rappers with guns.
Revelus's behavior starkly contrasts with that of his parents, churchgoers who were widely described as hard workers.
"They tried to raise their kids the right way," said Marie Simon, a distant relative of the family. "There was no trouble that I know of. I still cannot believe it."
The Rev. Rosette Falaise, pastor of Bethel Pentecostal Haitian Church in Dorchester's Fields Corner, said the mother was a member. She said Kerby Revelus did not attend church often, but that from what she could see he loved his younger sisters.
"They are sweet people," Falaise said.
