Sunday, January 18, 2004

By Bill Heltzel, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

What words could comfort a family reeling from the brutal deaths of three loved ones?

"Thy will be done," spoke the Rev. Silas West before the coffins.

What words could heal families riven by grown children whose conduct results in so much loss?

	John Beale, Post-Gazette The bodies of David Walters and his daughter, Destini, are carried, in one casket, to a hearse after services at Clawson Funeral Home in Leechburg. The body of Rhonda Walters had already been placed in the other hearse.

"Forgive and ask God for forgiveness," the preacher said.

What words could make sense of such unspeakable behavior?

"Don't even try to understand," West told Carl and Judi Walters and 80 friends and relatives who attended the funeral service at Clawson Funeral Home in Leechburg, Armstrong County. "Believe in God."

It was Carl Walters who discovered the bodies of his granddaughter, Destini, 19 months; his son, David Lee Walters, 27, and his daughter-in-law, Rhonda Walters, 35, in their trailer Tuesday in Parks, Armstrong County.

The Walters' son, Jesse, 9 months, was alive and unhurt, spared when an incendiary device meant to destroy the home malfunctioned.

Heather A. Goedicke, 23, the sister of Rhonda Walters, was arrested Thursday and charged with conspiracy to commit homicide.

Donald R. Barnhart, 31, who was Goedicke's boyfriend and the person who police believe killed the three Walters, shot himself to death in his car Friday just as police were about to pull him over in Westmoreland County.

Goedicke, according to court records, had nursed a grudge against her sister and brother-in-law ever since they kicked her out of their home two years ago. She began dating Barnhart in October and told him that David Walters had once raped her, though it wasn't true, police said.

Yesterday's funeral service began with a recording of Sting's "Fields of Gold."

" ... See the children run as the sun goes down among the fields of gold ... "

The preacher took his words from Psalm 27, "The Lord is my light and my salvation;" and Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd;" and John, "Let not your heart be troubled."

"Don't think God has forsaken you," West said. "This was the will of man out of control."

To forgive and to confess, to yield to God's will, is the only sure way, he told Carl and Judi Walters, to be reunited with their loved ones.

The service closed with a recording of "Amazing Grace."

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