They packed the pews of a Long Island church this morning to celebrate a woman who had finally found love again — but the tears and laughter were tragically for Jaime Taccetta’s funeral instead of her long-anticipated wedding.
The beloved mother of two, one of four people gunned down at a Long Island pharmacy, was laid to rest today in her white wedding dress as family and friends promised to look out for her two young daughters and derided her senseless death.
"It is not what we had planned," Father Michael Maffeo said at the funeral service. "It is not what Jaime had planned. The dress she is wearing, she had much better plans for."
Gunned down: Jaime Taccetta, seen here with her daughter Kaitlyn, was one of four slain in the Long Island pharmacy murders.
Those in the front pews of St. Joseph’s Church in Ronkonkoma chuckled a bit as Maffeo fondly recalled for the more than 200 mourners that Jaime was a little clumsy.
"She won’t walk into walls anymore and she won’t be clumsy," he said.
Taccetta, 33, a physical therapist, was due to marry longtime boyfriend James Manzella in October. Manzella was outside Haven Pharmacy in Medford on June 19 as Taccetta was picking up a prescription.
That’s when, police said, David Laffer, looking to steal painkillers, walked in and brutally gunned down Taccetta, of Farmingville; fellow customer Bryon Sheffield, 71, of Medford; cashier Jennifer Mejia, 17, of East Patchogue; and pharmacist Raymond Ferguson, 45, of Centereach, who was also buried today.
Kim Caucky, Taccetta’s ex-sister-in-law, said Taccetta’s daughters, Miranda, 16, and Kaitlyn, 5, were in counseling.
"We’ll be there for them," Caucky vowed.
US Marine Cpl. John Brown, Taccetta’s cousin who served in his full dress uniform as a pallbearer, said she was more like a sister.
"There wasn’t anything bad in her. Why would you take someone so good away?" he said. "You take innocent lives — you’re an instant terrorist."
Taccetta’s father, Ralph, a who owns a towing company, lead the funeral possession in a large blue and white tow truck, with his granddaughters riding in the cab. A police escort eased the way to the cemetery.
Friends couldn’t comprehend why Laffer, whose wife, Melinda Brady, was also arrested, killed so many people.
"Animals don’t even do that," family friend Corky Rochetta said.
Some of the customers from Haven Pharmacy made the trip to Forest Hills for Queens’ native Ferguson’s funeral at Our Lady Queen of Martyr’s Church.
Clutching Ferguson’s white pharmacist coat, girlfriend Karen McDermott said she found out he had died after someone wrote "Rest in Peace" on his Facebook page.
"He has the patience of a saint. He was selfless. I will love him until I take my last breath and he knows that," she said, weeping.
Ferguson, whose divorce would have been final in October, reconnected with St. Francis Preparatory classmate McDermott via Facebook.
Cousin Michael Gerel described Ferguson as a role model, and said the man was saving to send his parents on a trip to China.
"He had the most infectious laughter," Gerel eulogized. "I will always think of Raymond as a man of quiet strength ... with the thousand watt smile.
"He loved being a pharmacist, which he did for about 10 years," Gerel said. "It was the wrong place, wrong time. It never should have happened to him or anyone else who was killed that day."
Jaime Taccetta's mother and father leave St. Joseph R.C. Church in Ronkonkoma, as fiance James Manzella (right) hugs a family member.
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