Small Arizona community rallies after big crime

Interview with police chief

ST. JOHNS, Ariz. - When funeral services are held for a 29-year-old man who police say died at the hands of his 8-year-old son, this small eastern Arizona community is expected to turn out in droves.

"I don't think this church is big enough to handle it all," said the Very Rev. John Paul Sauter of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church.

The outpouring is a testament to the support the community has given Vincent Romero and his family since he and his co-worker, Timothy Romans, 39, were found dead inside Romero's home - one at the entrance and one in an upstairs room. Police have charged Romero's son with the crimes.

"The recent tragedy in our community has been very sad, an incident that makes us ask, Why?' yet pulls our citizens together with love and support," said St. Johns Mayor Ross Overson. "Without exception, the entire community has been affected by this tragic loss. No community can begin to understand how something like this could happen."

Ask anyone here, and chances are they know a member of the Romero family, which could explain why the loss is felt so deeply.

"Everybody knows them because there's like 100 of them," said Marybeth Ellsworth, who played the piano at Vincent Romero's wedding in September. "They're very well-liked in the community."

A prayer service was scheduled Sunday for Romero, and the funeral Mass is set for 10 a.m. Tuesday at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church. At a local convenience store, Romero smiles from a picture taken at his wedding. The flier advertises the services and asks the community for its continued prayers.

Romans, a San Carlos resident, had been renting a room in the Romero home.

Resident Flynt Smith said the two men were "the best neighbors we've ever had," kind and helpful. The two had lent a hand to Flynt when he was installing sprinklers in his yard and when his roof needed to be repaired, he said.

Those relationships are common in St. Johns, a town of about 4,000 people 170 miles northeast of Phoenix, and help draw people to the community and make those who were born there into longtime residents, said Smith's wife, Amber Smith.

"I feel you help each other raise each other's children, and you don't see that anymore," she said.

Chelsie Jaramillo, who with her husband and two children, moved into the home across the street from Vincent Romero just two weeks ago, said she was welcomed by Romero's wife, who told her to holler if she ever needed anything.

"They were really nice," said Jaramillo19.

The sounds of children giggling and chatting rang through the neighborhood Saturday as they rode their bikes up and down the streets, played in the dirt with trucks and jumped on a trampoline. Dogs barked, alerting neighbors when anyone was approaching.

Carl Hamblin, who coached Romero in Little League, seems to know every one of the neighborhood kids and "probably know their parents," he said. The 48-year-old has called St. Johns home for 30 years and works at a nearby power plant where the company Romans and Romero were employed with had a contract to do construction work.

A "hard worker," Hamblin said of Romans.

Of Romero, he said: "His heart was in it, he enjoyed what he was doing."

At St. John the Baptist, Romero sang in the choir and his wife had signed up to do so. The couple spent two years preparing for marriage, and when they tied the knot in September, the "church was packed," Sauter said.

"Because both their parents were divorced, they wanted to make sure their marriage lasted until death, and it did," Sauter said.

Just four people have been killed in the town in the last 20 years, including Romero and Romans.

"We're still in shock," Hamblin said. "This is so out of the norm, and to this day I don't believe it could happen again."

In the midst of it all, the city, its citizens, religious organizations, the school district and local businesses are preparing food for the family, and offering support and counseling to those affected by what Overson says is an "unexplainable heartache."

"God, time and the gracious service of our residents will heal each of us as we move forward," Overson said. "That is what our city is about."

"He just doesn't decide one day that he's going to shoot his father and shoot his father's friend for no reason. Something led up to this," said St. Johns Police Chief Roy Melnick.