Ventura Peace Corps Worker Slain

With just two months remaining on his Peace Corps hitch in west Africa, a 26-year-old volunteer from Ventura was killed this week by intruders robbing his home.

The news shocked those who knew Kevin Leveille, a man described as nonviolent who once attached a bell to the family cat to keep it from sneaking up on birds.

“My son loved life,” his father, Paul Leveille, said Friday. “He never had anything bad to say about anyone.”

Kevin Leveille was stationed in the nation of Ivory Coast, a former French colony. He lived in the village of Tanda.

His father said four people are being held by police in Thursday’s attack.

Although two other Peace Corps volunteers live in Tanda, Leveille lived alone.

He graduated with honors from Ventura High School in 1990. In 1995, he graduated from Humboldt State University with honors in environmental engineering.

“I’m proud of my son and I want people to know about him,” said Paul Leveille as he grappled with the tragic news in his east Ventura home.

“Kevin had been in the Peace Corps for two years. He had applied to UC Berkeley for graduate studies in environmental engineering-- he was waiting to hear if he’d been accepted.”

In Tanda, Kevin Leveille had worked with the mayor’s office on clean water and sanitation.

Paul Leveille said his son “specifically wanted to contribute to the people of Africa. That’s where he wanted to go. So I don’t have anything bad to say about the Peace Corps. They try to help people all they can.”

Kevin Leveille had planted trees at the local school in parched Tanda so the students could have shade.

“I think he even paid for the trees,” his father said.

Before going to Africa, Leveille had worked at such jobs as bagging groceries at the Alpha Beta market in Ventura. He would donate some of his earnings to animal protection groups.

“He’d write letters and make phone calls trying to stop steel-jaw trapping,” Paul Leveille said. “That bill is going before the Legislature. It wasn’t anything I passed on to him. In fact, he used to get so much literature in the mail that he got me interested.”

His father said the U.S. ambassador to the Ivory Coast and Mark Gearan, director of the Peace Corps, had called with their condolences.

In a statement, Sachiko Goode, Peace Corps director in Ivory Coast, said, “We feel like we’ve lost a member of our family.”

In addition to his father, Leveille is survived by a younger brother, Brian, 23, a sales representative in Ventura; his mother, Vicki Lopez, divorced from the boys’ father and living in Santa Clarita; his stepfather, Steven Lopez; his stepmother, Janet Michels of Ventura; two stepbrothers and one stepsister.

“We haven’t made any plans about a service; Kevin’s mother is still too upset,” said Paul Leveille.

The family expects the body to be shipped back to the U.S. this weekend.