Unspeakable grief and shock were etched on the faces of mourners paying their final respects Thursday to a pair of teenage sisters killed in their Westchester home by their police officer father in a senseless murder-suicide.
Relatives had wanted the wake for Alyssa and Deanna Hochman to be a more upbeat celebration of their young lives.
But that was nearly impossible given the circumstances of the grisly slayings and the pain felt in every corner of the Harrison community where they lived.
Glen and Anamarie HochmanFacebook“This is just heartbreaking,” said a mourner as she stood in a long line to view the closed wooden caskets, each adorned with a gold sign that read “Beloved Daughter,” at the Coxe & Graziano Funeral Home in Mamaroneck.
As family and friends, wearing red and green ribbons, traded hugs and blank stares, a television looped photos of 17-year-old Alyssa and 13-year-old Deanna from childhood through adolescence.
There were no photos of their father, Glen Hochman, 52, who shot the girls in the head as they slept Saturday amid marital strife with his wife, Anamarie, who was out of town with their oldest daughter during the shootings.
The wake brought out a mix of family, friends, classmates and total strangers touched by the emotional tragedy.
Dozens of floral arrangements filled the room, some in the shape of crosses and hearts.
“We loved them very much,” said Anamarie’s uncle, Emil Giliotti. “I can’t describe the feeling of everyone in the family. Just devastated.”
A funeral for the girls will be held Friday at St. Gregory the Great Church on Halstead Avenue in Harrison.
No arrangements have been announced for their father.
