Brookfield vigil pays tribute to teen who was fatally shot

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A candlelight vigil at Brookfield High School Sunday for 15-year-old Robert Flynn.

Robert Flynn is remembered as a friendly and caring boy who loved basketball.

BROOKFIELD — It’s been a tough 15 months for the students at Brookfield High School, who have lost three classmates to sudden, unexpected deaths.

Friends of Robert J. Flynn, 15, of Masury gathered under a big tree outside Brookfield High School on Sunday to have a daytime candlelight vigil to remember the boy who would have been a freshman when classes start in two weeks.

The 30 or so students, parents and relatives talked of Flynn, listened to songs played in his memory and took a few moments to remember him in silence.

“He’ll always be in my heart,” said Vanessa Gory of Sharpsville, Flynn’s girlfriend. “I love him.”

Said a cousin, Darian DePreta, 13, of North Carolina: “He was a great listener. He was so funny. He was so caring and loving. Everybody loved him.”

Flynn was fatally shot during an altercation he and three friends had with a man and woman at a home on Stateline Road in Hubbard Township last Monday, police said. So far, one person, Karen Adams, 29, the girlfriend of the homeowner, has been charged with tampering with evidence in the shooting, which was ruled a homicide.

Friends remembered Flynn as a funny, friendly and caring boy who loved basketball.

“Every time he would walk past you, he would smile,” said Lauren Schulte, who will be an eighth-grader at Brookfield Middle School this year.

Schulte’s mom, Christal Seibert, said she has known Flynn and his family for many years.

“That was his life. That’s all he did,” Seibert said. “He always had a basketball in front of his house.”

Stephanie Shelko, the mother of another of Robert’s friends, Kayla Shelko, said Robert, always a jokester, had a not-so-subtle way of asking for a ride home.

“Every time I would see him after school, he would climb on the hood of my car or just open the door and get in,” she said.

Shelko added that her daughter, about to be a sophomore at Mathews High School in Vienna, is among a large group that has had to cope with the loss of three of their friends at Brookfield. Kayla Shelko was a student in Brookfield until recently.

In addition to Flynn, junior Alessa Norris, 16, died in January in a car accident on U.S. Route 62 in Hubbard Township, and “Maggie” Marmion, 17, also a Brookfield High junior, died May 28, 2008, from injuries she suffered in a car accident in Shenango Township, Pa.

“It’s been a lot for my daughter,” Shelko said.

If there’s anything to be learned from Robert’s death, Shelko said, it’s to “be careful who you hang around with because sometimes it’s the innocent ones who get hurt.” She said she thinks Robert was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Robert was one of four boys age 15 to 17 in a car that had gone to a Stateline Road home at about 2:30 a.m. A 16- or 17-year-old female friend of the boys lived at the home. A heated discussion involving at least one of the boys, plus Adams and the girl’s father took place before shots were fired, police said.

Police said they believe Flynn was outside the vehicle when he was shot once in the head. He died later at St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown.

At the vigil, Robert’s friends placed a small cross in front of a tree with Robert’s name on it. Other items were placed there, such as a photo of Flynn and stuffed animals.

Flynn’s funeral was Sunday.

runyan@vindy.com