WEYAUWEGA (NBC 26) — A stepfather presided over the funeral services of his own children Wednesday at Weyauwega-Fremont High School.
Pastor Kurt Schilling asked the community to not be angry.
"It would have been easy for us [to] hate the man who did this," he said to the mourners. "But what good would that do for any of us?"
Schilling's eldest stepchild, brother of the four siblings killed in a wrong-way crash on U.S. Highway 10 earlier this month was not among the hundreds of people at their funeral.
"We humbly ask our elected officials to help provide healing for our family by giving us a miracle called Jorge Gonzalez."
Jorge, the brother, lives in Ecuador. Schilling said he is not allowed into the United States because of immigration restrictions. Schilling said the family has received support from United States Senator Tammy Baldwin's office.
During the funeral, Schilling said he was blessed to treat the four crash victims as his own before their untimely deaths.
"I fell in love with all of them, and I'm thankful for all of them," he said. "Everyone who knew them felt the same."
As we have previously reported, Scott Farmer is charged with the deaths of Daniel, Fabian, Lilian and Daniela Gonzalez.
Prosecutors said Farmer had a three-quarters full bottle of vodka at his side while driving the night of the crash, when the Gonzalez siblings' SUV was hit head-on. Authorities say the suspect has four previous Operating While Intoxicated convictions.
"Not just four lives were lost, but perhaps at this point too it re-highlights the importance of trying to get stronger laws for drinking and driving, or against drinking and driving," Luis Gonzalez-Quizhpe, cousin to the victims, said after the service ended Wednesday afternooon.
He said he is heartbroken by the deaths of his cousins.
"My cousins are gone," he said. "Daniel and fabian, the two oldest, they were a unit ... Both of them were hard workers ... Lilian and Danielita, the two youngest, my siblings are going to miss [both of them] so much. They were the ones that they looked up to."
A visitation and mass will happen on Friday at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church at 105 North Lincoln Street in Weyauwega, which Gonzalez quizchpe says honors his cousins' indigenous Ecuadorian roots. Friday's services begin at 1 p.m. Their bodies will then be sent to Ecuador for burial.
