BREMERTON, Wash. — Two friends of Gabriel Gaeta were among those paying their respects at a memorial that grows each day in honor of 6-year-old Jenise Wright, the precocious neighbor girl at the Steele Creek mobile home he is accused of raping and murdering.
"I couldn't believe it," said Giremine Ballestra. "If he did this out of anger, out of spite or anything like that? I don't know."
He is still struggling to believe.
"She was raped and then hidden and then like, I don't know," Ballestra said, his voice trailing off. "It's really, really hard to accept."
"It's just a big shocker," said Dahren Huiett. "It's like a shock and awe.
Huiett, like Gaeta, is a wrestler. He is transferring to Olympic High School in Bremerton where Gaeta, a former state champion, was to be a senior in September.
"I wrestled with him and his brother," said Huiett. "And they're like, somewhat like half angels. They're just great people."
But KIRO 7 found evidence on line of a darker side to Gaeta.
There are the entries from the website, Ask.fm. In one, Gaeta talks about killing people; in another, about smiling when a child cries.
He wouldn't show his face as he was led away, but according to court documents, Gaeta wept when he was taken into custody Saturday afternoon.
Now, what he allegedly did to Jenise has other parents keeping their young ones, even closer.
"She's a very friendly little girl and she talks with everybody," said Janie Marchlewski of her 8-year-old daughter, Maria. "And I've got to teach her that you can't trust everybody.
School officials in Central Kitsap say they will have crisis response teams at their schools when classes resume Sept. 3 for any student who needs to talk.
KIRO
