ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 24, 1996 TAG: 9601240021
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
ALEXANDER DeFILIPPIS thought "humans had an underlying goodness." On Monday his friends remembered the slain Virginia Tech student.
By all accounts, Alex DeFilippis was a just a good, good guy.
He visited inmates in jail. He played cards with them. He and his cousin sometimes debated into the night as DeFilippis described his faith in the innate goodness of man.
When his alleged kidnappers stripped him and turned him loose to find his way home on a country road early in December, Alex DeFilippis turned to them. With characteristic respect, he reached out and shook the hand of one of his captors, Deacon Mike Ellerbrock said the family was told.
Apparently, moments later he was shot, Ellerbrock said.
The Roman Catholic deacon had said he wouldn't try to make good news out of the slaying of the Virginia Tech junior. During his homily for the young man at a Monday memorial service, he described what had occurred that December night. Ellerbrock said later that he'd learned the final details of Alex's life from the young man's mother, with whom he's been in touch.
"It was just tough to hear what happened to him," Alex's cousin, Vinicio Ingrao, said after the service. He and a group of Alex's friends stood in the vestibule of the War Memorial Chapel and talked about how it's been for them in the weeks since Alex's death.
Ingrao thought hard about not returning to school for the second semester. His cousin was killed just as exam week started.
"Before, my biggest problem was to sit and stress over an exam," Ingrao said. Now, he sees that in the scheme of things, "it's really nothing."
"It helps you communicate to others how much they mean to you and how you appreciate them more," said Tom Staeger, who, with Ingrao, shared a Blacksburg apartment with DeFilippis.
Alex was the friend who always listened; "the first person you went to for advice," said Mike Marston. He was the one who volunteered to be the designated driver; who gently encouraged his cousin to go to church more.
The cousins used to stay up, arguing about rights, Ingrao said.
"I think people are given too many rights. He never thought about the ignorance of people. He thought humans had an underlying goodness. It's almost ironic."
Alex was shot and killed in the Whitethorne community after being abducted from a Blacksburg convenience store.
Benjamin L. Lilly, 27; his brother, Mark Anthony Lilly, 20, both of Riner; and Gary Wayne Barker of Montgomery County later were charged with DeFilippis' abduction, robbery and capital murder.
According to the Montgomery County commonwealth's attorney's office, a preliminary hearing for the trio is scheduled for Feb. 19.
During Monday's ceremony Ellerbrock, a Tech professor who'd taught DeFilippis in class, pointed out the similarities in the lives and deaths of Jesus Christ and his student.
"Both of them were killed by people who should have known better," Ellerbrock said.
Alex had been reading a book called "Introducing Others to Jesus," in the days before he died, he said.
Ellerbrock clutched a deck of cards as he spoke.
He asked the 70 or so people present to renew their commitment to nonviolence. And then he flung the cards into the air, inviting the mourners to pick up a card, and to begin to put the pieces back together.
For Ingrao, who grew up with DeFilippis, one of the numbing effects of the slaying has been watching the nightly news. Every night, there it is: Violence. Crime. Victims.
"I feel like I want to do something," he said.
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN KIM/Staff. 1. This mourner found a solitary spot atby CNBthe side of Virginia Tech's Memorial Chapel during the service for
Alexander DeFilippis on Monday. 2. A deck of cards was strewn on the
floor before the altar as Catholic campus minister the Rev. James
Cowles (center, in right photo) celebrated Mass at the memorial
service for Alexander DeFilippis in Virginia Tech's Memorial Chapel
on Monday. DeFilippis, who was abducted and slain in December, was
an avid card player. 3. Deacon Mike Ellerbrock (right, in right
photo), who had been one of DeFilippis' professors at Tech, had
thrown down the cards and then asked mourners to pick them up to
symbolically put the pieces back together. 4. Later, as Communion
was distributed (below) worshippers collected the cards and
deposited them in a basket as they departed. color.