Internet Is Blamed in Death of Altar Girl

At her Catholic school, sixth-grader Christina Long received good grades, led the cheerleading squad and was an altar girl. On the Internet, she used provocative names in chat rooms and arranged sexual liaisons, police said.

“It seems impossible to imagine, much less to reconcile,” the Rev. Albert Audette, pastor at St. Peter’s Church, said after a memorial service Tuesday at the church school that was closed to reporters. “People make decisions we can’t fathom.”

Police said 13-year-old Christina was strangled by a married restaurant worker she met on the Internet. Her body was found early Monday in a remote ravine.

Saul Dos Reis, 25, an undocumented immigrant from Brazil, confessed Sunday to the killing and led law officers to the body, U.S. Atty. John Danaher III said.

Classes were canceled Tuesday at St. Peter School so students and parents could attend the memorial service and meet with grief counselors.

“I’m so devastated,” former teacher Andrea Cappiello said.

“She was a very good student and a very good cheerleader. She was very spirited, just a doll,” said Cappiello, who taught Christina’s fifth-grade English and religion classes.

But the girl also had a tougher side, Cappiello said.

“She was streetwise,” she said. “It’s clear she was very torn in both directions.”

Dos Reis was arraigned Monday in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport, Conn., on a charge of using an interstate device--the Internet--to entice a child into sexual activity. He was ordered held without bond. Police said that the teenager routinely had sex with partners she met on the Internet and that she had been with Dos Reis several times, the News-Times of Danbury reported.

Authorities found e-mail indicating that the two had agreed to meet Friday night. Dos Reis told police he accidentally strangled Christina while they were having sex in his car in a mall parking lot, the News-Times reported.