FATHER Raymond Gravel spoke of his distress in presiding the private funeral of murdered children Olivier, 5, and Anne-Sophie Turcotte, 3, which is taking place today in Montreal.
The funeral is taking place after yesterday’s public farewell.
Before the funeral father Raymond Gravel said he was spiritually torn by having to preside at a funeral for two young children.
“How do you explain to a congregation how God can allow innocents to die like this,” he said.
Father Gravel said he felt deeply troubled for having to preside over a funeral like this for the first time.
He also mentioned that he tried to reach out and minister to the childrens’ father, but he was unsuccessful.
The 125-seat chapel was already packed an hour before the funeral even began.
Olivier and Anne-Sophie’s parents separation and following custody battle was the reason that their father, Guy Turcotte, took their lives by stabbing them and attempting to take his own by a medicine overdose.
Yesterday, in the funeral parlour, self help books entitled ‘Talking to Your Child About Separation’ and ‘Parents that Children Deserve for Life,’ were a sinister reminder of the handling of family issues towards children. They were placed amongst hundreds of photographs and keepsakes and notes surrounding the caskets.
The family had the outer appearance of perfection in having a life filled with fun trips and celebrations and a large home as both parents were successful doctors. Anne-Sophie and Olivier were apparently happy and healthy children.
There were a long list of mourners present at the children’s funeral including the murderer’s mother. One lady said; "They were children who had everything to make them happy."
There was a photo album which captured the family’s happiest times together and there were numerous photos of their smiling dad who is now charged with their murders.
Their surviving mother, Isabelle Gaston, looked drained yesterday as she accepted the condolences of the family and friends who came to pay their last respects to her children.
The children were found dead on Feb 21 by police in their father’s recently rented home in Piedmont after family members grew concerned after they never showed for a scheduled meeting. At the time their mother, Gaston, an emergency room physician at Hôpital Hôtel Dieu in St. Jerôme, was skiing in the Gaspé.
The children’s father, Turcotte, 36, a cardiologist who worked in the same hospital as their mother, was charged on Tuesday with two counts of first degree murder.
He was refused treatment at his own hospital after he tried to take his own life because no doctor there wished to have him as a patient. Staff experienced a mixture of revulsion, shock and sadness which resulted in requests if he could be transferred to Sacré Coeur Hospital in Montreal.
The double homicide-attempted suicide followed a gruesome New Year's Day pact by a depressed, jobless Saguenay couple to end their financial woes and which led to their children's murders and the mother assisting the father’s suicide.
(SOURCE: Montreal Gazette newspaper)
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