Church Mourns 5 Slain Members

By STEVE KORNACKI The Tampa Tribune

Published: Dec 16, 2007

CLEARWATER - More than 200 people gathered Saturday afternoon at the Unitarian Universalists of Clearwater church to grieve and console one another after the tragic deaths Friday of five church members.

Jennifer Davis, 27, and her partner, Andrea Pisanello, 53, were killed in their Largo apartment. Davis' two children, Olivia Bernsdorff, 4, and Magnus Bernsdorff, 2, were found dead at the family home in Clearwater. Their father, Oliver Bernsdorff, apparently shot himself to death while driving across the Sunshine Skyway.

Many congregants approached before and after the 30-minute program said they didn't know the family particularly well.

Except Allyson Weaver, 9. She knew Olivia well.

"I was supposed to be at her birthday party at her house today at 10 a.m.," said Allyson, who helped care for Olivia during church meetings and Sunday school.

"I had a book to give her as a present," said Allyson.

Instead, Allyson spent Saturday mourning the death of her friend and the rest of her family.

Allyson sat in the lap of her father, Al Weaver, of Seminole for most of the program. She cried often.

Her father said, "You loved her like a sister, didn't you?"

His daughter nodded and said she did.

"How do I console my daughter?" Weaver said, repeating the question. "Just by being here for her."

Linda Stoller, president of the church board of trustees, said grief counselors would be available today before and after the church's services at 9 and 11 a.m.

John Carpenter of Clearwater, who teaches Sunday school for teenagers at the church, said of the deaths of the children: "Their faces are erased from the playground here. I don't understand how you can be so well-educated and yet so selfish. I will never understand."

Bernsdorff was a Pinellas County teacher.

Delores Costello of Seminole and Mary Lube of Largo taught Olivia and Magnus at the Belleair Montessori Academy.

"Olivia was a very sweet little girl and so close to her brother," Costello said. "She liked to color, drawing trees and birds."

"I was devastated and broke down and cried," said Lube, who taught Magnus. "He loved to go on the swing and play with his friends.

"There were lots of tears and hugs at the school yesterday. We all hung together and tried to make sense of what happened. But it will never make any sense at all."

Speakers at the service touched on the guilt some were feeling about wondering if there was something they could have done to prevent the tragedies.

Mark Morrison-Reed, the church's visiting minister for the past three weeks, noted that the congregation is "rocked by grief."

"It is hard not to feel guilty … and more unsure about life than the day before yesterday," he told them. "Help us to stop torturing ourselves over what-ifs."

Reporter Steve Kornacki can be reached at (813) 731-8170 or skornacki @tampatrib.com.