Slain Nun’s Office Was Ransacked

The night Mykhaylo Kofel says he killed the woman who controlled Holy Cross Academy’s finances, he also broke through a window into her campus business office and allegedly rifled through a cabinet, leaving the floor littered with blood-stained files, the school confirmed Friday.

Once inside Sister Michelle Lewis’ office, Kofel seemed to focus on a file cabinet, pulling out drawers, looking at the bookkeeper’s files and then throwing them around the floor, according to Holy Cross attorney Peter Miller.

It’s unknown if anything was taken from the small office – just a two-block walk from where Lewis was stabbed to death inside her convent house March 25. Concerned about what may have been taken, Holy Cross launched an audit of the records in Lewis’ possession after the murder, Miller said.

It showed no important papers were missing.

In his confession to Miami-Dade homicide detectives, Kofel, 18, admitted using a fire extinguisher to smash a window in the school’s business office, then reaching in and turning the knob, later found covered with blood. However, Kofel offered no specific explanation about why he broke in, and it was not clear at the time that the office belonged only to Lewis.

This week, school officials said Lewis’ office housed items such as bank records, but there was no cash in the office.

What Lewis did keep were records of bills generated by the school, the tuition she collected for its 500 students, and payroll information on teachers and other employees. She also paid the cellular telephone bills and made tuition payments for the monastic candidates attending college, usually at Barry University in Miami Shores.

It’s unclear if the break-in took place before or after Lewis was murdered and whose blood the crime lab found on the doorknob, files and floor.

Edith Georgi, Kofel’s public defender, was in Ukraine on Friday and could not be reached for comment. Detectives investigating the case also could not be reached.

Assistant State Attorney Gail Levine, the lead prosecutor in the case, would not confirm information released by the school.

”I can tell you that we are checking every detail related to what the defendant did that night,” Levine said Friday.

Along with first-degree murder, Kofel is charged with armed burglary, Levine said Friday.

Along with first-degree murder, Kofel is charged with armed burglary, Levine said.

Last week, school officials said Kofel apparently paged Lewis before her death. After finding Kofel’s cellular telephone still in his room, they scanned its memory and discovered Lewis’ pager number was among those in the memory, but neither the date nor the time of a page was found. Cellular records have been subpoenaed by prosecutors.

School officials emphasized there was no reason for the accused killer and his victim to be paging one another.

”If Kofel needed any of his bills paid, he had to go through the chain of command and that was through one of the fathers,” said school spokeswoman Joanna Wragg. ”The school has no idea why he would page her.”

In his confession, Kofel said he killed Lewis because she was verbally abusive to him. He has also accused Holy Cross’ head clerics – Father Abbot Gregory Wendt and Father Damian Gibault – with sexually abusing him, an allegation they adamantly deny.

Also Friday, Holy Cross made public a decision to suspend its monastic training program until further notice, in light of the murder.

The announcement was made by Wendt through his public relations firm.

”It is extremely difficult to maintain our proper schedule of worship and religious training under these circumstances, and we would not even consider introducing new monastic candidates into this unusual environment,” he said.

”For now, the four young men who are already here will continue their prayers and education in the monastery to the best extent possible.”

Herald staff writers Manny Garcia and Amy Driscoll contributed to this report.