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	Photo by Sam Yu The Rev. J. Kevin Farmer opened the 11 a.m. Mass at Holy Family Catholic Community talking about the tragic loss of the Woods family discovered Saturday in Middletown.

Saturday, the father of Francie Billotti-Wood, 33, entered her family’s Washington Street home.

He found his daughter, his son-in-law, Christopher Wood, 34, and their three children, Chandler, 5, Gavin, 4, and Fiona, 2, dead.

Police believe Wood killed his wife and their three children before killing himself.

Billotti-Wood and the children had all suffered cuts and been shot with a .25-caliber pistol, according the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office. Wood apparently committed suicide with a shotgun.

The bodies were scheduled to be autopsied today by Maryland’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

Police found at least five notes, which they believe Wood wrote, in the house.

One of them indicated he may have had psychological issues, said Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins.

In a blog entry dated March 16, Billotti-Wood wrote that her husband was experiencing stress related to his new job.

“Chris is trying to adjust but he is having a hard time with the new job which makes him more of a major player at work,” she wrote. “More of a mover and a shaker. Which neither he would ever volunteer to be.”

Wood was employed by CSX Railroad as a sales accountant in the department handling the transportation of chemicals and fertilizer, according to the sheriff’s office.

By Sunday afternoon, mourners had placed flowers, balloons, stuffed animals, photographs and notes on the porch of the family’s home.

Heather McCubbin who was in middle school when she met Billotti-Wood, turned to the Internet to memorialize her friend.

They’d walk home from school together, McCubbin said.

“She was very friendly, very funny, very talkative,” McCubbin said. “She was not shy.”

The two drifted apart when Billotti-Wood moved away, but reconnected in the past year when she moved back to Middletown .

Saturday, McCubbin started a memorial page for her friend on Facebook.

After news of the tragedy broke, people started leaving messages and remembrances on Billotti-Wood’s own Facebook page, McCubbin said.

McCubbin created the memorial page so people could more directly interact as they remembered Billotti-Wood.

By 6 p.m. Sunday, people had left hundreds of messages on Billotti-Wood’s page and nearly 400 had joined the memorial page.

“I don’t know if she knows how many lives she touched,” McCubbin said.

Audrey Wells, a Middletown resident who said she didn’t know Billotti-Wood, picked up a fundraising effort Billotti-Wood had left unfinished.

Billotti-Wood had been advertising on her blog, trying to raise $500 for Volunteer Frederick ’s Big Sweep through the web site Firstgiving.com.

“It was literally just seeing the little widget on her page saying ‘help me raise $500,’ and it was sitting at zero,” Wells said. “I said ‘you’re going to meet your goal.’”

Wells spread the word about Billotti-Wood’s fundraising goal, and within 12 hours, had raised the money. By Sunday evening, the tally stood at $737.

“I didn’t do it for me,” Wells said. “I just figured I wanted her to reach that goal.”

At Holy Family Catholic Community, Billotti-Wood was remembered for her volunteerism in the church nursery, as a catechist for second-grade pupils and on the parent advisory committee, among others.

The church leaders called on parishioners to seek solace in and answer the calls of their faith following the deaths.

In a homily Sunday morning, Deacon George Sisson said that in the wake of this tragedy, the community’s challenge was to keep its faith in God.

“Even when we’re challenged by death ... we are a community of believers,” Sisson said. “Our faith does not stop working even in the darkest of times.”

Holy Family’s pastor, the Rev. J. Kevin Farmer, said parishioners shouldn’t seek the answers to unanswerable questions about the killings, but should instead turn to the tenets of their faith.

“I’m not going to be foolish enough, or even human enough to come up with answers ... I don’t have,” he said, “but I think we have to emphasize what it is we believe.”

Holy Family Catholic Community has sought support from Archdiocese of Baltimore’s crisis intervention team and several local counselors to help the community deal with the tragedy, Farmer said. Church members have also had preliminary discussions on holding some sort of memorial service in addition to the normal funeral rites.

Frederick County Public Schools will have a crisis team on hand Monday at Middletown Primary School, where Chandler was a pupil, said Marita Loose, the school system’s spokeswoman. The team will be available to assist both pupils and staff.

The school will also be sending a letter home, expressing sympathy for the Wood’s extended family, she said.