WILBRAHAM — A funeral service is now underway at St. Cecilia’s Catholic Church here for Amy E. Lord today, a native of this town who was murdered last week in Boston, a killing that has shocked the region and led to the demotion of a Boston police detective.
The services are being held one day after a wake drew an estimated 1,000 people to a Springfield funeral home where the 24-year-old Lord was remembered as a bright and bubbly young woman, a born leader, a talented student athlete, a fierce friend.
John Sampson, who owns Sampson’s Chapel of the Acres funeral home where Lord’s wake was held said the church can hold 750 people. He said Lord’s parents and two sisters are expected to sit in the front pew in the church.
Half an hour before the funeral around 10 a.m., church bells began to ring. It was another bright and cloudless day, and, except for the cars, Main Street was silent. Outside, everything was decked in white: white ribbons celebrating Lord’s life on mailboxes, telephone poles, and, perhaps most prominently, on a large-rooted tree just to the side of the church parish office.
At the wake Monday, Ned Doyle, 67, Lord’s high school athletic director, said she was a “delightful young woman in every regard,†socially, academically, athletically. As captain of the cheerleading squad, a driving engine of school spirit at Minnechaug Regional High School, Lord was enthusiastic and, most important, inclusive, he said.
Boston police have said Lord was attacked last Tuesday morning as she left her apartment building on Dorchester Street in South Boston. She was forced back into the vestibule of the building, beaten, and then made to drive to five ATMs in Boston to withdraw cash.
Her body was found Tuesday afternoon at the Stony Brook Reservation in Hyde Park.
Police have a “person of interest†in custody — Edwin J. Alemany — but have not charged him with murdering Lord. Alemany, 28, is undergoing a mental competency examination at Bridgewater State Hospital and currently is charged with attacking two other South Boston women.
Last night, Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis told concerned South Boston residents that he has ordered the demotion of Jerome Hall-Brewster from detective to patrol officer because the commissioner believes Hall-Brewster failed to investigate Alemany’s potential role in a September attack on a woman in Roxbury.
Davis did not identify Hall-Brewster by name, but department officials did.
A woman was attacked from behind as she walked on Parker Hill Street, strangled into unconsciousness, but managed to grab a wallet that included Alemany’s ID card. The woman survived, but Davis has said the case was not investigated as thoroughly as it should have been.
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Nikita Lalwani can be reached at nikita.lalwani@globe.com.
