Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

The me­dia were told to leave the chapel at Allen's Fu­ner­al Home yes­ter­day at the fu­ner­al ser­vice of the Vonet­ta Haynes-Reyes, 31, and her sons Makasi, five, and Ma­lik, eight. The di­rec­tive came from the chil­dren's fa­ther Selvon Reyes af­ter he saw flash­es from cam­eras up in the bal­cony where sev­er­al me­dia per­son­nel were lo­cat­ed. Oth­ers who were wait­ing to en­ter were told by a fe­male po­lice of­fi­cer: "The hus­band does not want the me­dia here." Reyes was seen whis­per­ing to a po­lice of­fi­cer mo­ments be­fore she told them they had to leave. Scores of mourn­ers were al­so locked out the chapel on Broad­way, Ari­ma, be­cause of the seat­ing ac­com­mo­da­tion. Many ex­pressed their frus­tra­tion, say­ing they want­ed to hear the ser­mon. Spe­cial guests al­lowed to en­ter had ei­ther blue or black and gold rib­bons pinned to their clothes. Framed pic­tures of the three vic­tims and heart-shaped wreaths were placed on top their cas­kets.

Dozens of wreaths and ros­es placed in front the al­tar dec­o­rat­ed the room. The eu­lo­gies were read by Haynes-Reyes' sis­ter Ali­cia Pierre and cousin Sherun­da La­touche, while Pas­tor Wayne Prime de­liv­ered the ser­mon. Prime said there were peo­ple walk­ing around with­out their main or­gan-their hearts. He said a cloud of dark­ness had cov­ered the land but as­sured the mourn­ers "even in the dark­est hour Je­sus was al­ways there." He re­ferred to the two boys as "dear lit­tle an­gels." Prime said T&T was fix­at­ed on "par­ty."

He urged them to "wake up and smell the cof­fee." Prime said: "It is worse than a jun­gle out there." At 3.55 pm, af­ter mourn­ers left the chapel, the me­dia were told by an uniden­ti­fied man "you can go and take your shots now."

Haynes-Reyes' once beau­ti­ful face looked far from flaw­less. She wore a pair of glass­es. A minia­ture ted­dy bear was placed in Makasi's blue and white cas­ket. Sev­er­al po­lice of­fi­cers and mount­ed po­lice kept close watch on the out­side as mourn­ers drank liquor from parked ve­hi­cles, while oth­ers shel­tered un­der their um­brel­las from the driz­zle. Haynes-Reyes and her sons were found mur­dered at their Plumba­go Av­enue, La Hor­quet­ta, home last Thurs­day. Post-mortem re­sults re­vealed her sons' throats were slit and Haynes-Reyes' had stab wounds to the neck. The three were buried at the In­dus­try Pub­lic Ceme­tery in D'Abadie.