Anger mixed with heartbreak Wednesday as more than 150 mourners packed the funeral service for the 5-year-old Florida girl who was unexplainably thrown from a bridge last week, allegedly by her own dad.
Phoebe Jonchuck's tear-stained mother, Michelle Kerr, had asked the congregation to wear bright colors to the funeral, consequently filling the Tampa church with muliticolored balloons and a rainbow of outfits.
The young, trembling mother was seen helped to the side of her youngest daughter's white casket by her boyfriend after exchanging hugs and greetings with those in attendance, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
"There needs to be a lot of forgiveness here today," said Pastor Brent Byerman, who led the service, according to the Times. "Not only forgiveness for the person who took Phoebe's life, but also for ourselves and everyone who may have let this girl down."
A man seated in the back of Lake Magdalene United Methodist Church reportedly twice interrupted the service and had to be removed after shouting out that he wanted to kill the girl's father.
John Jonchuck, the 25-year-old accused of dropping the child from a St. Petersburg bridge after picking her up from a church daycare, remained jailed for first-degree murder and unable to attend
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While emotionally speaking to reporters after Wednesday's funeral service she maintained that her son "adored" his daughter, leaving her with no understanding of why he did what he did that horrible morning.
"But I have to forgive him," he said while cradling her granddaughter's favorite doll and a photo of her.
"I'll never go to heaven if I don't forgive him," she said.