Murder-suicide in Clarkstown: Schools, community find ways to mourn together

WEST NYACK − As the Clarkstown community continues to reel from the slaying of the Morgan family, schools Superintendent Marc Baiocco said Tuesday that all Rockland County school districts have offered resources to help.

Clarkstown police reported Saturday that New City resident and Bronxville Police Sgt. Watson Morgan, 49, apparently killed his wife, Ornela, 43, and sons Liam, 10, and Gabriel, 12. He then killed himself, police believe.

Liam was in fifth grade at Laurel Plains Elementary in New City; Gabe was a seventh-grader at Felix Festa Middle School in West Nyack. Ornela Morgan was a middle-school teacher in the Bronx.

Murder-suicide: Bronxville cop killed family, self at their New City home, police say

Both boys were active in the Boy Scouts and youth sports, Baiocco said, well-liked and good students. He said the family had been very involved in school and community activities.

He described the two students as "servant leaders."

'Deepest kind of grieving'

Baiocco held a short press conference Tuesday morning outside Festa. He had stopped by the school to check on students, teachers and staff.

"We wanted to make sure that teachers had resources; that students felt safe," Baiocco said. "This is the deepest kind of grieving that a school community could possibly have."

Baiocco said other school districts in Rockland County had offered to provide psychologists and counseling staff. He said Clarkstown has been able to use its own staff, including by bringing over people from other schools in the district, to provide support. On Sunday, many families showed up to Festa and Laurel Plains to access resources, Baiocco said.

Vigil for family set

Friends of the Morgans, along with the town of Clarkstown and the school district, have planned a candlelight vigil at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Germonds Park, 185 Germonds Road, West Nyack.

Overflow parking will be available at Felix Festa Middle School with shuttle buses starting at 5 p.m.

Those coordinating the candlelight vigil have formed a group called the Morgan Family Memorial. They set up a Facebook page: Facebook.com/morganfamily memorial.

"It’s also going to be a place for a lot of the people who need a place to go, to mourn together," said Hector Camilo Jr., a New City resident, friend of the Morgan family and co-organizer of the vigil. "A lot of them haven’t had time to be together."

Camilo said counselors will be on hand for anyone who wants support. "Just a place to come and cry."

The Camilo family, including Hector's wife, Jacqueline, and sons Lucas, 12, and Logan, 10, were very close with the Morgans. It's been a difficult time, Hector Camilo said, with the family's violent end.

"Me, personally, I knew him as a friend. I would be a hypocrite not to forgive him," he said. But Hector Camilo said he understands that many feel differently.

"He did something horrendous," he said of Watson Morgan. "A lot of people who are angry with him … I wouldn’t say they are wrong to be angry. Who am I to tell someone how to feel about the family?"

The family was active in their parish, said the Rev. Richard Baker, parochial vicar of St. Francis of Assisi Church in West Nyack.

The rosary and benediction will be said at 5:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. Tuesday and 6 p.m. Thursday at St. Francis of Assisi Parish, 128 Parrott Road, West Nyack.

"This is an opportunity for us to offer the comfort of our faith to anybody who wishes to come," Baker said. "Those wo are saddened, those who are filled with so many emotions."

Help available

Call or text 988 for 24/7 confidential support to people in suicidal crisis or mental health-related distress.

Contact the Rockland County Behavioral Health Response Team for mobile behavioral health services, 24/7.

Reach the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or chat via thehotline.org.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Clarkstown NY murder-suicide: schools, community mourn loss