Student Monks’ Movements To Be Monitored

A Miami-Dade judge on Thursday ordered four student monks who could be witnesses in the case of a murdered nun to notify authorities before leaving the county.

The aspiring monks lived at Holy Cross Academy in West Kendall with Mykhaylo Kofel, who is accused of stabbing Sister Michelle Lewis to death last month. Kofel, 18, is charged with first-degree murder.

His attorney has argued that the four fellow Ukrainian student monks, age 17 through 20, are material witnesses.

Circuit Judge Manuel Crespo ordered them to notify James McGuirk, attorney for the Byzantine Catholic school, if they plan to leave the county. McGuirk will then notify the court.

McGuirk also made arrangements with prosecutors and Kofel’s lawyers for them to gain access to the West Kendall school.

Defense attorneys have wanted to visit the campus but so far have not been given the opportunity, McGuirk said.

”We need this investigation to go forward, be thorough and be done,” McGuirk said afterward.

The case began on March 25 when Lewis’ partly clothed body was found in a bedroom of the house where she lived on the academy grounds.

Noticing a blood trail on the grounds, detectives knocked on the door of the house where Kofel and the other student monks lived.

They immediately noticed cuts on Kofel’s hands. Under questioning, he later told detectives he stabbed Lewis because she was verbally abusive.

Kofel is being held without bail at the Miami-Dade County Jail.