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Day of Remembrance of Homicide Victims marked in Washington

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Rebecca Kelley said everyone tells her it will get easier with time to get over the unsolved murder of her brother-in-law, who was shot dead by a bank robber in 2013.

“It does, and it does not,” Kelley said Sunday in Washington on the National Day of Remembrance for Homicide Victims.

About 100 people gathered that afternoon to remember their deceased friends and relatives at the Crime Victims’ Memorial Garden behind Washington County Courthouse.

“It’s sad we’re all here,” said Judy Nemeth, the county’s director of victim services.

“I’m glad we all have one another,” Nemeth added at the service in front of the garden featuring a man-made waterfall and small round rocks bearing the names of victims.

Kelley was there to remember Vinnie “Mystro” Kelley, 46, who was shot and killed June 16, 2013, by man he was chasing who had robbed a Citizens Bank branch in the Giant Eagle grocery store in South Strabane Township.

“It’s bittersweet to look at someone and understand what they are going through,” Rebecca Kelley said, referring to the other mourners at the event.

Sue Fazzini, a Roman Catholic nun in Greene County, served as keynote speaker at the program.

Fazzini said the day of remembrance is “a reminder that our hearts are joined together in hurt.”

“Few understand what you are going through at no choice of your own,” she said.

She said the friends and relatives of those “stolen away by violence” have a future that “becomes a struggle from moving on and hanging on.”

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