It Was ‘A Crime Of Rage And Animosity’

Sister Michelle Lewis, whose call-to-God led her to Holy Cross Academy, spent her final moments fighting off a knife attack with her bare hands, according to a Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s report obtained by The Herald on Monday.

Her attacker stabbed Lewis 92 times. She suffered 36 blows and was stomped and kicked as she died. Her body had signs of ”six bloody shoe-imprint-like marks,” the 16-page report says. Lewis was not sexually assaulted, the autopsy report indicates.

But her nose was slashed, her skull was fractured and most of her vital organs were pierced. A pathologist counted a total of 134 injuries.

”It’s a crime of rage and animosity,” Miami-Dade Police spokesman Rudy Espinosa said.

Accused in the murder is Mykhaylo Kofel, 18, a Ukrainian monk-in-training at the school. In his confession, Kofel claimed he killed the nun-in-training because she was verbally abusive to him.

The report details how detectives arrived at Holy Cross on March 25 to find a bloody scene.

Lewis, 39, was face up, her body next to her cat’s litter box and an exercise bicycle in her carpeted bedroom, the report says. She wore only a black, flower-print pullover that was cut and rolled up over her chest.

In her struggle with her killer, a lamp smashed to the floor, but the religious pictures remained on the wall.

Kofel is charged with first-degree murder and remains detained with no bond at the Dade County Jail.

Suspect Called Girls

In another revelation on Monday, a spokeswoman for the school confirmed that Kofel had been making nighttime calls to a teenage girl attending the West Kendall campus in the days prior to his arrest for the murder. He also had called a former female student.

Kofel’s social contact with female students was a serious violation of his promise to lead a monastic life while at Holy Cross and would have likely prompted a reprimand from school officials, said Joanna Wragg, spokeswoman for the school.

As a trusted novice at Holy Cross, Kofel was allowed to carry a cellular telephone. The bill was paid by the monastery, Wragg said. It’s unknown if Kofel used his cellphone to call the girls.

As the school’s bookkeeper, Lewis ran the day-to-day business dealings at the school and oversaw payment of all bills.

”The school found out about the calls after the murder when parents reported that Kofel was calling their daughters at home,” Wragg said. ”It is safe to say that if the school had learned about the calls, he would have been reprimanded. When you’re a monk in training, you’re not supposed to behave that way.”

Since the murder, a second former female student came forward to say Kofel was also socializing with her on the telephone.

Kofel had met the girls at the Holy Cross campus, where he has been training to be a monk in the Byzantine Catholic Church since age 14.

The revelation offers a hint that Kofel may have been having doubts about permanently entering a religious life.

Once A Model Trainee

At one time, Kofel had been considered a model trainee. But acquaintances have said that in recent months he seemed to have had a change of heart about his spiritual life and talked of wanting to become a nurse.

Despite accusations from Miami-Dade state attorney’s office that the school’s team of attorneys is hampering the investigation, school officials have helped detectives locate the girls who were chatting with Kofel, said Mel Black, attorney for the school’s spiritual leader Father Abbot Gregory Wendt.

”Detectives were made aware that Kofel had called the students,” Black said.

”However, they did not know the identity of these students. The school supplied their identity after locating the students.”

Kofel came to Holy Cross Academy after officials from the school visited his hometown to recruits boys to train for religious life in America. Kofel’s parents gave permission for him to come to the West Kendall private school.

Since his arrest, Kofel also accused Wendt, and the school’s second in command, Father Damian Gibault, of sexually abusing him. He has also said he was the victim of his father’s sexual advances back in the Ukraine.

Wendt and Gibault, along with Kofel’s father, Yuri, have vehemently denied Kofel’s allegations.

Four other Ukrainian student monks living at Holy Cross – ranging in age from 17 to 20 – have denied to detectives they had been sexually abused at the school.