Love through the pain

The charred remains of this Powers Way home are – and should be – testament to the evilness that can invade our lives, even the youngest.

Corinne Gump, 10, died here in March, along with her grandparents, William and Judith Schmidt.

What is easiest to see of the South Side home is the blackest of flame-scorched wood, the broken glass and the plywood over window frames.

What is harder to see is the love.

But you find it if you look real close at the hundreds of stuffed animals, the candles and the letters and cards carefully tucked in plastic baggies.

In the days after the three deaths, the home on the Youngstown-Struthers line hosted many family, friends and strangers to cry and lend support.

It’s one thing to be a part of such a shrine when it’s on the front page. But when all those lives move on, just a few walk the ruins to make sense of the evil.

That’s where you’ll find Lisa Cappitti and her fiance, Ethan Gump, who is Corinne’s dad.

Rain and sun have worn at the likes of Winnie the Pooh, Minnie Mouse, Dora the Explorer and many more tributes. But they’ve not lost the comfort they bring Lisa, Ethan and Corinne’s siblings and cousins.

I drive past the home on the way to work, occasionally staring briefly at the home as I pass.

One day, Lisa was there, and I stopped.

On this day, she was moving the stuffed animals off the lawn so as to be able to run a lawnmower over the patch of grass on the small city lot.

You can’t fault them for finding a lot of such reasons and needs so as to visit the home.

She estimated that you can find her, Ethan and other family members at the home four times per week. Sometimes they will make it over there twice a day.

Through wide sunglasses, she stares at a pile of animals around the tree.

“All the kids are devastated; the cousins – the whole family ...” she trails off. “This is where we come.”

It’s a pretty extended family structure. There are six kids with Ethan and Lisa – besides Corinne. And with Corinne, even though she was in the custody of her maternal grandparents William and Judith, she was always available to be with Ethan and Lisa. Not enough great things could be said about William and Judith, Lisa said.

It was a perfect place for Corinne to be. It was her safe haven from another tragedy, which makes the fire even more unfathomable.

Though officially still under investigation, the fire is suspected to be arson – in part because of how it engulfed the home, but also because of its timing.

The day of the fire, a sex-abuse trial was slated to begin in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. Corinne’s mom’s ex-boyfriend was set to stand trial on charges that he sexually abused Corinne. When the fire started, he was out on bond and under electronic monitoring awaiting trial. He’s been in jail since the fatal fire – not charged, but under investigation with multiple agencies doing a painstaking probe of all the evidence.

With the public attention quieted, and the case of Corinne’s accused in the courts, what Lisa and the family have is this charred structure.

The animals, crosses, gifts and candles have mostly made it to the front steps now, and off the lawn. Some rest atop the bushes.

Lisa said there’s no real plan for the home or the property, and she doesn’t intimate that one is desired anytime soon.

She slowly paces the grass – plucking an animal here and a doll there. Neatly, like pillows on a grand bed, she tucks each one into just the right space in the pack on the porch steps.

One tribute tugs hardest at Lisa. It’s a letter that showed up one day. It starts with “Dear Corinne’s family and friends ...”

For about 150 words typed in all caps, a little girl goes on in tragic words that she should not have to write; things like:

“You all thought you would be her guardian angels but all the sudden now she is your guardian angel.”

“We all have shoulders to cry on. Corinne will be there for us anytime in life and she will touch our hearts again and we will know when she does.”

But what tugs at Lisa the most are the girl’s opening lines:

“Corrine was like the bestest friend I ever had because I was there for her and she was there for me.”

Who is the girl? How was she helped by Corinne? How was she hurt?

Lisa longs to know more about that little girl.

She tells another story of a visitor long after the initial wave. It was an older man who arrived when several family members were there. He just walked up and set down a single bear and said a quiet prayer.

“I asked him, ‘Did you know them?’”

The man said no, and quietly walked away.

“I just started crying; we all did.”

That’s how love comes from such an evil event.

Honestly, there’s only so much that can be done with the tributes, which still arrive. You can imagine Lisa creating things to do just to not be consumed by the obvious ugliness. But the obvious is there, and is inescapable.

Lisa slips a finger under her sunglasses to wipe away a tear.

In sweats and a T-shirt with a sprinkling of tattoos, she’s a poster for “Struthers tough.” But this scene and this story will crumple the toughest.

“It’s just hard to imagine what they went through,” she says as she looks down the side of the house and explains what fire officials told her.

“Corinne was a very smart and brave girl, loved by so many, but especially her grandparents. Her childhood was taken away from her and us.”

Todd Franko is editor of The Vindicator. He likes emails about stories and our newspaper. Email him at tfranko@vindy.com. He blogs, too, on vindy.com. Tweet him, too, at @tfranko.