Slain Girl’s Friends, Classmates Pay Tribute at Emotional Service

One by one, the teen-agers untied their black armbands and laid them atop a white-and-pink casket at the hillside cemetery in Newport Beach on Saturday, then turned away, many to the arms of friends.

Hundreds of friends and relatives attended an emotional funeral Mass and graveside ceremony to bid farewell to Suzanne Mohr Coleman of Santa Ana, a 16-year-old Fountain Valley High School junior who met a violent death a week ago in an alley near the Los Angeles Coliseum.

“The big question in everyone’s mind is ‘why?’ ” said Father Tim Doyle during the Mass at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Fountain Valley. “I’m sorry, dear friends, I do not know the answer to that. Only God knows. . . . Suzi’s in heaven now. That’s fine, beautiful. The only answer we have is that answer of belief, that answer of hope.”

Suzanne was shot to death early June 8 near South Menlo Avenue after she and her boyfriend, on a Saturday night date attending a motorcycle race, became lost while looking for her car and were held up at knifepoint--for $2. When she and her boyfriend, Christopher Barth, 18, of Fountain Valley, tried to recover her stolen purse, the apparent robber--who had moved atop a roof--fired several shots, two of which struck Suzanne Coleman in the head as she turned to flee.

Murder charges have been filed against three teen-agers, two of them juveniles, in connection with her death.

“There may be bitterness in our hearts” because of the violence that ended her life, Doyle said. But he reminded the mourners that Jesus Christ, carrying the cross to his death, asked God to forgive his accusers.

“Life is stronger than death, and love is stronger than hate,” Doyle said. While crying for the dead is natural, Suzanne would encourage her mourners to “carry on with the principles” of love and happiness that guided her life, Doyle said.

“There is too much sadness in the world. We are celebrating life, the completion of a journey. . . . Let us promote love and understanding and forgiveness, one for another.”

The priest said Suzanne’s “short life was not in vain” because she touched so many people. He had been affected, he said, by the outpouring of memories at an unusual and emotional memorial service Friday night, at which friends read letters and expressed their thoughts about their classmate.

Doyle read one of the letters, from a teacher, at the Mass: “Her cheerful personality and quick smile brightened even the most dreary days,” Doyle read.

Dennis Grogan, a parishioner who helped Doyle in the Mass, echoed the message to forgive, saying he once worked in the Watts area. While he was “making no excuses” for Suzanne’s killer, living in poverty robs people of hope and love, he said.

“They have no incentives. They have no goals,” Grogan said. “Please pray for those kids there.”

Two of Suzanne Coleman’s uncles told the gathering that the greatest tribute the mourners could make to their niece would be to pass along her love to others.

“Look around you and look at all the goodness. That goodness is Suzi,” said Ron Konecke of Bear Creek, Pa. “If you take the goodness that was Suzi and spread it to others, that would mean a lot to her.”

His brother, Lee Konecke of Valley Forge, Pa., said that despite his grief, being around his niece’s friends and seeing her imprint on them has shown him “a beautiful thing has happened.”

Nearly all the mourners in the church then formed a several-block-long procession of cars that wound down to Pacific View Memorial Park, on a hillside overlooking the ocean.

There, pallbearers, many of them teen-agers dressed in white with black armbands and ties, placed the casket in front of a mound of flowers.

The casket, decorated with a spray of pink sweetheart roses, later would be covered with single flowers, placed there by friends and relatives, along with the black armbands.

A priest handed one of the roses to Barth and a crucifix to Suzanne’s mother.

“This girl has left a lot of loving memories,” said Father Henry Perez, looking at the mourners, many of whom leaned on each other for support. “There just did not seem to be an end” to the funeral procession, he said. “When I die, I hope I have half the cars following my coffin.”

Suzanne Coleman, he said, was “extraordinary. She was of the elite class.” Then Perez recalled how, on the way to the cemetery, his car passed a person in another vehicle who was apparently angry at having to wait for the long chain of mourners and “flipped us off.”

It reminded him, Perez said, of “how we are of two different extremes.” On one side are the compassionate people, “the people behind me who are crying,” and on the other are “the cynics, like the one on the roof who caused” the funeral, he said.

“Which side are you on? That’s what’s important,” he told the mourners.

Speaking for Suzanne, he said, he thanked her friends for all their love and kindnesses, “for the smiles, the embraces and kisses.” It hurts to lose someone, but “unless things are broken, things are not appreciated,” Perez said.

“Go home now, have a hamburger and a Coke and relax, knowing you have done well. Let her memory live with you. Don’t leave her memory behind.”

They will be reunited with their friend, he said.

“We are not saying goodby to Suzi. It’s not all over. The final chapter has not been written,” Perez said. “For us, this is a tragedy . . . but for God, he finally has her where she had to go anyway. . . . All of us are headed for that gate. She just got there ahead of us.”