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Tim and Pam Ginocchetti at their home in Pennsylvania. In the early years of her marriage, Pam Ginocchetti resented her minister’s mandate that she live in Pennsylvania with her husband’s family. Even after Tim’s birth in 1985, Pam’s mood — despite outward appearances — remained dark and anxious.
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With a yellow ribbon to celebrate the return of their daughter, the Rufos in 1989 welcomed Pam and her family back to Syracuse. Pam had dreamed of escaping Pennsylvania, but she only managed to replace her old anxieties with new ones.
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Though Pam resented John’s job with the fire department, Tim was proud of his father’s service, both before and after his death. Tim is 6 or 7 in this photo with his father.
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John, the burly outdoorsman, always made sure to tell his delicate, bookish son he was proud of him. The two spent countless hours together on the church retreat property, where John built Tim a treehouse and helped him with his favorite winter activity: building snow castles.
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John joked with Tim that he had to be an expert in “Pamology,” the care and feeding of a needy wife. But John never complained and dearly loved his wife.
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Paul and Esther Rufo, seen here in 1988. Esther adored her gentle, caring husband, who was the opposite in temperament from her tough father.
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Seen in a 1976 photo from the pages of the Eagle-Bulletin newspaper, Rev. Frank Giuliano has led his church since the early 1950s.
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Tim’s highly detailed floor plans of the original retreat house at Bethany Retreat accompanied his application to engineering school.
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The only remembrance of her husband that Pam kept visible in the house after his death was this news photo of the fire that killed John and a fellow firefighter. Pam and others saw, in the flames at center right, the shape of an angel. Photo by Jim Commentucci, published March 10, 2002.
Copyright 2012 The Post-Standard. All rights reserved. Used with permission of The Post-Standard.
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Little more than one year before losing his father, and already recognizing the strange and unwelcome stirrings of his homosexuality.
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This single page from July 2004 shows Tim’s tiny, meticulous writing in his private journal, which he kept in defiance of his mother’s orders.
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Arrested the night of his mother’s killing, Tim, seen here at an April 2007 court appearance, was shocked by his new surroundings in jail. Photo by Dick Blume.
Copyright 2012 The Post-Standard. All rights reserved. Used with permission of The Post-Standard.
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Local reporters tried in vain for months to learn what led Tim to kill Pam. Even after Tim’s sentencing, when his confession came out, still no one would talk about what really went on between mother and son.
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Abandoned by her husband and children for standing up for Tim, Esther Rufo now lives alone in the same town where she raised a family and worshipped at the church that now shuns her.
Photo by Mark Obbie
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Esther Rufo and her grandson Tim Ginocchetti, in front of the cheesy backdrop the prison insists on using for all family photos. Esther is Tim’s only family visitor at the distant prison in New York’s North Country.
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There is not a day that goes by that I do not think of them all and my heart aches!
I grew up in House of Prayer. It broke up my mother and father as well. Everything my mother does goes through brother frank. He was totally disrespectful at my fathers funeral. He is an opportunistic manipulative person that weaves cheap shots at members with his sermons. Im glad tims grandmother stood by him.