By:Hector Flores
Earlier this month, Carlie was kidnapped and brutally murdered in Florida. Ever since, her family here on Long Island say they have felt the deepest of pain over her sudden loss.
The private, one-hour service began at 11 a.m. At the altar of the towering St. Barnabas Church stood three photographs of Carlie, each adorned with flowers.
Andrea Brucia, Carlie's grandmother, said the service was kept secret to avoid media attention. Still, there was hardly enough room in the church to accommodate all the mourners.
"Everyone was there," Andrea Brucia said. "Public friends and people we didn't know attended. It was standing-room-only."
Rev. Peter Dooley, St. Barnabas' spiritual leader, celebrated the Mass, and Deacon Robert O'Donovan assisted. The Brucia family requested two special songs, "Be not Afraid" and "On Eagles Wings".
"It was a very prayerful service for Carlie, and everyone who attended prayed for the Brucia family," Dooley said.
Carlie Brucia lived with her mother, Susan Schorpen, and step-father, Steven Kansler, in Sarasota, Fla. On winter and summer breaks from school, Carlie spent time with her father, Joseph Brucia Jr., in Bellmore and grandparents, Joseph Sr. and Andrea, in Wantagh.
Carlie's abduction made national news when a car wash's surveillance camera recorded a then-unidentified man pulling her away by the arm, less than a mile from her home, on Sunday, Feb. 1. Her body was eventually discovered on Friday, Feb. 6, behind a church parking lot. Sarasota sheriffs are now holding Joseph Smith, 37, as a suspect in her murder. According to police records, Smith has a long record of arrests, ranging from attempted kidnapping, battery, drugs and weapons possession.
Joseph Jr. is questioning why Smith, a man with such a known criminal history, was allowed on the streets. In a recent interview with Bill O'Reilly on the Fox News Channel, Joseph Jr. asked Judge Harry O'Reilly, the Florida judge who could have kept Smith in jail, to resign his judgeship.
Joseph Brucia Jr. left for Florida on Monday, Feb. 2, a day after Carlie's disappearance, and returned to Bellmore last week. His Bellmore home is now adorned with purple ribbons, balloons, cards, letters and candles from well-wishers.
The Brucia family has started a fund in Carlie's memory to assist other parents and families find their missing children. Send donations in the "Memory of Carlie Jane Brucia" to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 769 Elmont Road, Elmont, N.Y. 11003.
Stranger Danger in the schools
In the wake of Carlie Brucia's kidnapping and murder, the Bellmore and North Bellmore school districts are stepping up the Stranger Danger program they already had in place to help kindergartners and first-graders understand how to stay safe on the streets.
James Parla, the North Bellmore School District superintendent, said the schools use a Stranger Danger video. "There are copies of this video in each of the schools," Parla said. "And teachers will be showing this video during the upcoming weeks."
The program offers practical tips for children to follow when approached by a stranger. Through the video, children are taught:
¥The verbal skills to refuse a strangers' gifts, candy or an invitation to enter a car or building.
¥That if they are faced by a stranger, they are to inform a school official or police officer.
¥To recognize safe places (school, store, home or neighbor) if they are lost or are in danger.
¥To differentiate between emergency and non-emergency incidents.
¥Where area pay phones are and how to use them to dial 911 in an emergency.
Sheldon Dumain, Bellmore's superintendent, said that protecting children from strangers is the district's highest priority. "That is why we don't allow door-to-door fund-raisers," he said. "If we decide to have a candy fund-raiser, we ask parents to help their children sell candies."
He added, "We are always sending fliers home, holding review programs and insist that if children walk home that they stay in groups."
