After 3 deaths, ‘question is why’

Faced with unimaginable tragedy, the Rev. Jose Manuel Abalon struggled to find the words to console friends and relatives who filled the light-filled church. In one week, a family lost three loved ones: Maria Avelina Palaguachi-Cela and her 2-year-old son Brian were found Feb. 13 bludgeoned to death and hidden in a trash bin in Brockton. Days later, the woman’s nephew, roofer Luis Gilberto Tenezaca Palaguachi, fell to his death on a job in New Bedford.

“Now, especially with Brian, the question is why?’’ Abalon said in Spanish to mourners, most Ecuadoran immigrants like Palaguachi-Cela and Tenezaca. “And we don’t have words to explain it.’’

No one has been charged in the slayings of Palaguachi-Cela, 25, and her son, who would have turned 3 next month. But police want to question Luis Guaman, a 40-year-old roofer who shared an apartment with Palaguachi-Cela and her family in Brockton. But authorities say Guaman caught a plane to his native Ecuador using an alias just hours after the bodies were found Sunday. Authorities believe he is the last person to have seen them alive.

Ecuadoran police arrested Guaman last week on charges of having a false passport. He is being held in jail for at least 30 days in the city of Cuenca pending a hearing. Guaman has outstanding arrest warrants in the United States, but authorities have been skeptical about the possibility of returning him to this country because Ecuador’s Constitution bars extradition.

Yesterday, in the church decorated with candles and baskets of flowers, Abalon read passages of the Bible to help explain why sometimes even a bubbly child like Brian, who charmed the neighborhood with his smile and frequent trips to a nearby playground, could die so young.

Abalon, the pastor of St. Patrick’s, urged mourners to have hope, in spite of the injustice of their deaths.

“Yes, we feel this pain, this sadness,’’ he told them. “But with faith we have hope.’’

As he spoke, women clutched their babies and mourners wiped away tears. A girl held a bouquet of red flowers.

Relatives came from as far away as New York for the services. Others showed up because they had seen mother and son in the neighborhood and remembered their faces.

State Senator Thomas P. Kennedy, Democrat of Brockton, said he lives in the neighborhood and recognized mother and son, who often walked down his street on their way to the playground. “She always had a warm smile, and he was the cutest little thing,’’ he said.

Luis Caguana of New York, Brian’s great uncle, said he had seen Brian around Christmas and that he was enthralled by the child’s sense of boundless joy. He would play with his cousins and always seemed happy, even when cheekily ordering his father to take him home.

The boy’s father, Manuel Jesus Caguana, had been in Virginia on a two-week construction job when Palaguachi-Cela stopped answering the phone. He rushed back early and found her and his son missing and Guaman’s room cleared out.

“He has no one here now,’’ said Luis Caguana. “He’s all alone.’’

After the services, friends and relatives gathered at a relative’s nearby home. They prayed around a table laden with teddy bears and flickering religious candles. Manuel Tenezaca bade farewell to his sister-in-law, nephew, and son, Luis. He said the loss was too much to bear.

Just over a week ago, he said, they were a happy family, trying to build a better life in the United States.

“Who would ever imagine that this could happen?’’ he said.

The bodies will be returned to Ecuador today for burial, said David Russell Jr., owner of the Russell & Pica Funeral Home in Brockton.

Maria Sacchetti can be reached at msacchetti@globe.com.