Services for slain New Stanton mom, son will be Monday
A funeral will be held Monday for two New Stanton family members who were shot and killed this week while they slept.
Friends and family of Dana L. Remaley, 46, and her 8-year-old son, Caleb, will be received 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. Sunday at C. Richard McCauley Funeral Home, 101 S. Fourth St., Youngwood.
Services will held 10 a.m. Monday at St. Martin Catholic Church on Route 982 in New Derry. Father Lawrence L. Manchas of St. Bruno Roman Catholic Church in South Greensburg, where the Remaley family worshipped, will officiate.
Jacob Roland Remaley, 14, is charged as an adult in the slaying of his mother and brother. The Hempfield Area High School ninth-grader faces two counts each of homicide and first-degree murder.
According to an affidavit filed by state police, Jacob Remaley shot his mother and brother with a Ruger .380-caliber handgun after his father, David, left their Thermo Village Road home for work Wednesday morning.
Caleb was in the third grade at Stanwood Elementary School.
More than 70 Stanwood students and some of their parents met with grief counselors at the school Thursday, Superintendent Barbara Marin said. Counselors also were available Friday.
District officials are considering the use of therapy dogs at the school to help.
Michelle Cairns of Youngwood, a volunteer coordinator at Stanwood, said at a prayer vigil Thursday that students in Caleb's classroom were encouraged to write letters addressed to their missing classmate in heaven as a way of dealing with their loss.
“Even as an adult, if you write something down, it helps you process through it,” Cairns said.
Counselors were available at West Hempfield Middle School, where Dana Remaley worked as a personal care assistant, and at the high school.
Counselors helped many of Jacob Remaley's cross-country teammates and those who attended classes alongside him, Marin said.
According to an obituary posted on the funeral home's website, Dana Remaley was born in New Derry. She was a daughter of the late John B. and Barb (Bridge) Mehalic. She graduated from Derry High School and the University of Pittsburgh.
She was an active member of Stanwood Elementary C-PAT, the school's parent group. She also worked as a school aide at West Hempfield Elementary School.
She and her husband, David, were married 20 years.
She is survived by a brother, Michael Mehalic of New Derry, and a sister, Tracey Mehalic of Latrobe.
Interment will follow in the St. Martin Catholic Cemetery.
Staff writers Paul Peirce, Renatta Signorini and Jeff Himler contributed.
