Husband: Wife would have forgiven veteran in attack

February 14, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

CLEVELAND (AP) — A woman who ran a homeless shelter for military veterans was the type of caring person who would have forgiven the veteran who killed her, her husband said.

Rita Ciofani, who was attacked in her office Wednesday, was dedicated to helping downtrodden veterans, friends and family said.

“The person that did this? She would forgive him,” her husband, Ronald Kercher, said.

Ciofani was killed by Raymond Ice, 48, an Air Force veteran who had recently been told he needed to leave the Cleveland shelter because he had been uncooperative about attending counseling sessions, authorities said.

Police said they found Ice standing over Ciofani’s bloodied body clutching an ax and a knife. Authorities said Ice ignored orders to drop the weapons, charged at officers and was Tasered and shot.

Both Ciofani and Ice died several hours later at a nearby hospital.

The homeless shelter, run by Volunteers of America, houses about 50 male veterans and provides them with temporary food and a roof over their heads until they are able to find permanent places to live and stable employment.

Ciofani was a program director whose job included finding transitional housing for the veterans, as well as job training and counseling.

“She was very, very interested in the veterans’ cause. She would say that they were not always treated the way they should be,” said Mary Barnes, current director of the Forbes House. Barnes said she planned to meet Ciofani for dinner the night she was killed.

Friends and co-workers said Ciofani was someone who would not be intimidated by people or difficult situations.

“Even if a person seemed to be getting out of control, she would step in and try to make it better. I can’t imagine her walking away from it,” said Nancy Neylon, executive director of the Ohio Domestic Violence Network. “She’d work instead to make it better.”

Ciofani also was a lawyer who previously ran the Forbes House, a shelter for battered women in nearby Painesville.

“My wife wanted to make positive changes in the world,” Kercher said.