Birth Day Became Death Day

March 30, 2009
Man kills two sisters at birthday party
Claire Sweeney

A children's party turned into a bloodbath when the brother of a girl celebrating her fifth birthday decapitated her and fatally stabbed her 17 year old sister at the weekend.

After murdering the two girls, 23-year-old Kerby Revelus then turned towards his 9-year-old sister, Sarafina, with a knife in his hand before police shot him dead.

The bloody attack happened in the home Mr Revelus and his sisters shared with their parents and grandmother in the Boston suburb of Milton.

The children's parents were away, and their grandmother was doing laundry in the basement at the time.
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An officer on patrol in the area arrived at the house shortly after Sarafina called the emergency services. Hearing an altercation inside and unable to persuade the young girl to open the door, the officer broke through.

“As the officer entered the door, (Revelus) decapitated (Bianca) in front of him,” Milton police chief Richard G. Wells Jr said. “He actually walked into a killing field. He walked into such carnage, as far as the atrocity of it, I've never seen it.”

Within moments, four police officers were inside and two of them shot Revelus dead as he tried to get to Sarafina, Mr Wells said. Mr Revelus fell, still clutching the knife.

Details about the number of shots and who killed Revelus will be revealed folloiwng an autopsy.

Sarafina was admitted to hospital with wounds to her hands and stab wounds in her abdomen and one of her legs.

"In policing, we see the raw human emotion every day, but to think that a human being could afflict such an atrocious, violent act on his own family is unbelievable," Mr Wells said. "When I walked up to the first officer (on the scene), I could see the whole story right in his face. This just told me that this was something very bad."

Police do not know what sparked the attack but Mr Revelus had 24 hours earlier gotten into a fistfight with a man living next door.

“Blows were exchanged,” Mr Wells said. “I don't know the cause of it, but we're confident that did happen. He had been agitated in the hours that followed that, going into the day and last night.”

Mr Revelus recently served jail time on a gun charge, while in 2004 police were called to the family's house following the report of a domestic violence incident in which he had punched a woman living there.

Officers involved in the attacks on Saturday were receiving counselling from the Boston Police Department stress unit.