Peter Davidson - Murder at Holy Cross

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Table of Contents

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For Sister Michelle Lewis
May she find peace in the arms of God.

MURDER AT HOLY CROSS*

WHOS WHO

The Victim

Michelle Shelly Lewis, aka Sister Michelle

The Priests

Father Abbot Gregory Wendt, aka Father Gregory,
aka Father Abbot, aka Father Wendt,
Father Damian Gibault, aka Father Damian,
aka James Gibault

The Monk Trainees
Mykhaylo Misha Kofel
Petro Terenta, aka Petro Terenta Wendt
Vasyl Kopych
Alexander Sasha Korsak
Illya Hrytsak
Ivan Kalynych
Yosyp Lembak

The Lawmen

Jorge Gonzalez
Art Nanni
John King
Larry Belyeu
Bill Gilliland
Doug McCoy

Tom Romagni
Joe Malott
Jose Cabado
Steve Signori
Toby Wolson
*Refers only to the Monastery of the Exaltation of the Most Holy Cross and Holy
Cross Academy, both of Miami, Florida, and no other entity named Holy Cross.

The Prosecutors
Gail Levine
Priscilla Prado
Penny Brill

The Public Defenders
Edith Georgi
Ray Taseff

Witness Lawyers
Mel Black
Richard Hersch
Clark Mervis
Joseph Blonsky

The Judge
Hon. Manuel Crespo

1

The Lord will save me, and we will sing with stringed instruments all the days of our lives in the temple of the Lord.

Isaiah 38:20

It was just before midnight and South Beach was jammed, typical of a balmy weekend evening. But on Saturday, March 24, 2001, the neon-lit Art Deco district on the southern tip of Miami Beach was even more crowded. Thirty thousand DJs, music bigwigs and club goers had descended on Miami for the annual Winter Music Conference, and it seemed that they were all intent on having a good time in the one-square mile, multicultural melting pot known as SoBe.

While palm trees swayed with the breeze that blew in from the Atlantic Ocean, an endless line of shiny SUVs, sleek Mercedes convertibles, and stretch limos crawled bumper to bumper along Ocean Drive, where sidewalk bistros were filled with sexy young women in skimpy halter tops, muscular young men in T-shirts and Prada suits, and starry-eyed tourists from all over the world.

They were all there on this clear but moonless night to take in the scene or visit ultrahip nightspots like Crobar, Liquid, and Krave where, if they were lucky, they might rub elbows with pop divas like Madonna and Cher, Hollywood luminaries like Sylvester Stallone and Cameron Diaz, or supermodels like Nikki Taylor and Naomi Campbell.

On the other side of Biscayne Bay, thirty-nine-year-old Michelle Lewis, Sister Michelle, had already turned in for the night. She had been living in Miami for nineteen years but was immune to its steamy temptations. She did not wear halter tops and she had no interest in hobnobbing with celebrities. Instead, she wanted to get close to God, but before the sun would rise again over South Beach, Michelle Lewiss earthly life would come to a brutal and bloody end.

Michelle Ann Lewis was born in Akron, Ohio, on April 16, 1961, the older of Don and Beverly Bev Lewiss two children. Everyone called her Shelly.

Don earned his living as a chemical engineer with Goodyear, while Bev worked as a secretary at an auto parts company. By all accounts, the Lewis family was solidly middle-class. They lived in a comfortable three-bedroom ranch house with a fenced-in yard on Dennison Avenue, a tree-lined street in the Ellet neighborhood of Akron, a city that liked to call itself the Rubber Capital of the World.

Despite the social upheavals of the 1960s and 70s, the Lewis family remained close and deeply religious traditional Roman Catholics who regularly attended Mass on Sundays and did not eat fish on Fridays, not even after the Second Vatican Council deemed it okay in 1965. From the time she was a toddler, Shelly showed a strong will and an independent streak, and an abiding love for cats that manifested itself in her devotion to virtually every stray that wandered into the neighborhood.

Don was a strong believer in community service. He volunteered his spare time to the local Red Cross, where he taught CPR classes. He also devoured books on philosophy and science, and frequently engaged Shelly and her younger brother, Tim, in spirited discussions about their faith and what it meant to be a good Catholic.

While Don could be demanding and authoritative, Bev was always warm and loving. She baked holiday cookies for her childrens friends and their families and kept the home and hearth clean and tidy.

By all accounts, Shellys childhood was an ordinary one. She was brilliant, a straight-A student from the day she entered first grade at Ritzman Elementary School through her senior year of college. From an early age she loved reading and excelled at every subject, but she showed a special affinity for math, especially algebra and calculus. She was also a talented musician who played the flute in her middle-school and high-school orchestras and sang soprano in a clear, perfectly pitched voice with the school choirs.

She suffered from asthma and was severely near-sighted. From age ten she needed to wear eyeglasses all the time, but by age sixteen the eyewear was replaced by contact lenses. Shelly never smoked cigarettes, experimented with drugs, or chased boys, and she was not one to go joyriding once she got her drivers license. Instead, her trips in the family car were always undertaken with a purpose to get a book at the library or bookstore, or to go to school or church. Every now and then she would drive to a nearby pizza joint for a slice or two of her favorite food.

By the time she was a junior in high school, Shelly had blossomed into an attractive, brown-eyed brunette. She was petite with delicate features, a ready smile, a wry sense of humor, and a flair for fashion and makeup.

There was never any doubt, however, that academics were her first priority. She preferred books to boys and, even though her friends and classmates were fans of 70s heavy metal bands like AC/DC and Judas Priest, she preferred opera and classical music.

Beverly Dreher was Shellys best friend growing up. Starting as youngsters and throughout their teenage years, they would spend hours walking and talking, sharing their hopes and dreams for the future. By the time she was a senior in high school Shelly was talking about becoming a high school or college math teacher, and she hoped one day to marry.

Beverly remembers her best friend as a deep thinker with a deeply-rooted belief system, someone who loved to learn and could easily grasp difficult math and science concepts and explain them to her fellow students. Students and faculty at Central-Hower High School, a magnet school for gifted students, were dazzled by her whiz-kid-like brainpower and musical talent.

In her senior year, Shellys classmates voted her Most Intellectual, while the schools faculty chose her class valedictorian when she graduated in 1979. She was also named to the prestigious National Honor Society, which recognizes outstanding high school students for their excellence in the areas of scholarship, leadership, service, and character.

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