Friends, family mourn slain Roselle mother, son

Seven-year-old Joe Fontana should have been celebrating his last day of first grade Tuesday at Nerge Elementary.

Instead, he and his mother Becky Fontana were memorialized at Living Hope Church in Elk Grove Village and later laid to rest.

The Roselle mother and son were shot and killed last week by Becky's husband and Joe's father Mike Fontana, who then turned the gun on himself, authorities said. The three were found in their home May 28.

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The final question investigators, family and friends are struggling with is why.

"We don't know why Mike did this," Living Hope Church Pastor Mike Gates said during today's service. "We never will. The family says the Mike they knew didn't do this. Some other Mike did."

Becky's and Joe's bodies arrived at the church in matching white caskets with brown and tan trim, placed beneath a wreath in the shape of two interlocking hearts, one red, one white.

Becky's sister, Sue Gibbons of Schaumburg, recalled Becky and Joe's mutual devotion. Gibbons said the only comfort she could take in the situation was that mother and son never had to learn to deal with the other's loss.

"Joe was Becky's world, her light, her joy," Gibbons said.

She admitted she'd only made it through the last week herself through a combination of being in shock and believing the whole incident was just a bad dream.

"Part of the difficulty in talking about this is that it might be real," she said.

Gibbons said her sister was a perfectionist in every aspect of her life, from her academic studies to her housekeeping. Gibbons joked that Becky would have been pleased to hear one of the police investigators last week say the Fontana home was the cleanest he'd ever been in.

During Tuesday's service, Gates commended the family for how they've coped with the tragedy. While anger is an understandable emotion at such times, he said, they were applying their anger in only the right ways.

A slide show recounted the life of mother and son from Becky's girlhood to Joe's last few months with his family.

Mike Fontana was shown in several slides, but Gibbons asked the funeral guests to look beyond the circumstances of the family's deaths to the closeness and love they'd known in life.

Though none of Joe's classmates was present, Nerge Principal Chris Martelli spoke during the service, recalled the affection they and their teachers had for him.

Joe had a peanut allergy, requiring him to sit in a "peanut-free" area of the lunchroom. But Martelli noticed early in the school year how many kids asked their parents not to pack peanut butter for them so they could sit with Joe.

"He had an infectious personality that students and adults alike gravitated to," Martelli said.

Roselle Acting Deputy Chief John Lawson said investigators are still looking into Mike Fontana's health and financial records for clues as to a possible motive.

They're also still awaiting a determination of his time of death from the Cook County medical examiner's office, as there were some indications he might not have taken his own life until some hours after shooting his wife and son.

No information has been provided on funeral arrangements for Mike Fontana.

bull; Daily Herald staff writer Jake Griffin contributed to this report.