Homicides stun Geneva
GENEVA — Police are calling the double homicide of a woman and her daughter a case of domestic violence and said they had never been called to the second-floor apartment on North Main Street before Friday, when the dead bodies with knife wounds were discovered.
The investigation continued Saturday in the fatal stabbings of Helen Buchel, 34, and her daughter, Brittany Passalacqua, 12, a seventh-grader at Geneva Middle School on Carter Road.
Palmyra resident John Edward Brown, 35, of 285 Route 21, Lot 42, who was dating Buchel, was charged Friday with first-degree murder.
Police were called at 3:35 p.m. Friday after the bodies were discovered. Police would not say whether the person who found the bodies at 148 N. Main St. was Buchel’s son, who split time living with his divorced parents. The son, whose name was not released, was not present during the murders, police said.
Geneva Police Chief Frank Pane confirmed that Buchel and Brown were dating but said police have not yet established a motive.
The police tracked down Brown about 7 p.m. Friday after an all points bulletin was sent out for a 1997 dark green four-door Chevy Lumina. The car, which had no one in it when police found it, was towed back to the police station and has been impounded. Brown was apprehended separately, said Pane.
Autopsies on the victims were conducted Saturday at the Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office. It is unknown when the office will release the cause of death.
Brown is also being charged with a parole violation in relation to a 2003 conviction for second-degree assault in an unrelated incident involving an infant, according to Ontario County District Attorney Michael Tantillo. Brown was sentenced to three years in prison for that offense.
Brown is due back at Geneva City Court at 9 a.m. Monday on the murder charges.
The community was stunned by the slayings.
“I couldn’t sleep all night and I was just devastated,” Hildidega Diaz, Buchel’s neighbor, said Saturday.
After hearing the news Friday night, small groups of neighbors gathered and talked in hushed tones near yellow police tape as police investigated.
Randy Kent, 43, of Geneva, a driver with the Other Taxi Co., said he had known Buchel for more than two decades.
“She was a very nice person, and I was a close friend of her ex-husband,” he said. “This is appalling.”
