will come. only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life when we celebrate funeral masses for those who die a natural death, we choose scripture readings that bring us consolation and comfort. but for the deaths of tina and ethan, there are no easy words. we struggled with deaths like this, because they are not right. they are an abomination. we will miss them forever. we will always remember them and ask, what could have been? after all, this was a national tragedy. it has been very painful. an unending pain and sorrow. i can say that it has been and still is the very worst tragedy to befall our entire heritage as a family.
friends, had known the kids since they were born. jim was a very good friend of the family. jennifer willis and christina grew up like sisters. jen and tina both part of a big and boisterous extended family. he spent time with us, and we loved him. he was fun. he was a great guy. tina was a good friend to him, and he had been with her and her entire family for many, many years. while the kids were growing up. and so i know she was always there for him, as he had been for her. the relationship was crucial to him. andrew spanswick was a friend of dimaggio s. he had no other family so i think he had to find a surrogate family, and that s what he did. for 16 years, dimaggio was part of the anderson family. even helping out with the kids when brett took a job in tennessee. he would help get my son to football practice on days that hannah had dance or whatever. and he was constantly there for me.
those. when you get the fish out of the water, look, aunt jen, look what i got. now it s your turn. and despite an eight-year age difference, ethan and hannah were very close. they were inacceptable. and have been since they were little. she always took care of ethan and while mom was at work walked him to and from school. all those things. and mom, tina, she was always there to help. whether a sick family member or a friend that needed cheering up. like jim. she was tired, she was busy. she had a lot going on. and it was something that was a little bit difficult for her to squeeze into her busy schedule. but that s the kind of person she was. and she did that for jim. to go up there and help comfort him in this time that he had begged for her help. tina, ethan and hannah had no idea uncle jim had other plans.
and, says spanswick, before 2011, the beneficiary had been jim s sister, laura, a fact that fueled even more speculation. could jim have fathered ethan or hannah? we had heard this leak of the neighbors saying that potentially there was a relationship between jim and christine. and that s when laura had a knee jerk reaction. a kneejerk reaction to consider a dna screening for paternity. using samples laura already had. she has blood and hair samples from jim. james dimaggio, her brother. and she got that from the original coroner. and then she has a hair sample of hannah from when she slept at her house fairly recently. though no partner test has taken place, for christina s family, the damage is done. first of all, it s a lie. it besmirched tina. and the two children.
children like he hadn t been provided for. i was very sad when i heard it. david is christina anderson s uncle and remembers the separation quite differently. i think that s where this fellow maybe moved in on tina a little bit. but he was a trusted family friend. and he took the kids to practice, picked them up. was helping tina out. i could see where they were all manipulated to trust whatever he had to say or do. braun says some family members were slightly suspicious of why this divorced man spent so much time with the andersons. especially the kids. my brothers kind of wondered about this guy, because maybe not before, but they kind of out of place with the family. but they didn t it s not their business, you know. no one wanted to rock the boat. christina needed help with the kids.