Six members of a Brooklyn family who fled to Pennsylvania for a simpler life – only to be senselessly slaughtered by another relative – were mourned at an emotional service last night.
Patriarch Jessie Wise, in his 60s, the founder of the New York’s Federation of Black Cowboys, stared silently at the closed coffins at the Mount Sinai Cathedral Church of God in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Wise’s grandson Jesse Jay, 21, has confessed to wiping out three generations of his family at their home in Leola, including his grandmom Emily Wise, 64, uncle Jessie James Wise, 17; his aunt Agnes Arleen Wise, 43; another aunt, Wanda Wise, 45; and her two children, Chance and Skyler Wise, 19.
“Regardless of how we feel, I knew Emily Wise – and she loved her grandchildren whether they were right or wrong,” said Pastor Clarence Sexton, referring to the killer. “And I know, regardless of the circumstances, she would still want us to pray for his soul.”
Hundreds of Black Cowboys – a group that teaches children about the role blacks played in the Old West – packed the church during the two-hour ceremony.
(p. 27 in sports extra)