Priest decries violence at young father's funeral

Pallbearers carry Michael Costin's casket at his funeral yesterday

By Dave Wedge

July 12, 2000 Web posted at: 11:01 AM EDT (1501 GMT)

LYNNFIELD, Massachusetts (The Boston Herald) -- A Lynnfield father of four who was allegedly beaten to death over chippy play at a pickup youth hockey game, died ``violently before his time,'' a priest told mourners at a tearful funeral mass yesterday.

``I don't know why God took Michael Costin under such violent circumstances,'' said the Rev. John Farrell, pastor of Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Lynnfield. ``But God has the final word on violence.''

Costin, 40, died Thursday, the day after a brutal fight with 42-year-old Thomas Junta at Reading's Burbank Ice Arena. The two men, whose sons were playing in the pickup game, fought after Junta took issue with how Costin, who was on the ice, was controlling rough play, according to witnesses. Several children, including Costin's, witnessed the violence.

Junta, a truck driver from Reading, faces manslaughter charges and is free on $5,000 cash bail.

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His criminal past includes a 1992 charge of assault and battery on a police officer in the North End. He pleaded to sufficient facts and the case was continued without a finding.

He was also questioned in the 1985 unsolved murder of his wife's brother, Robert ``Booboo'' Barrett, who was gunned down inside the former Celtic Tavern in Charlestown, according to Junta's in-laws.

A woman who answered the phone at Junta's home yesterday said the family had no comment.

About 200 people filled the church, many of whom carried pink roses that were later laid on Costin's casket before it was buried in St. Joseph's Cemetery in Lynn. Costin's sobbing children - Sean, Brendan, Michael and Tara - held hands and clutched relatives as they walked behind their father's coffin.

At his wake Monday, one of his sons, so overcome with grief, climbed into the casket with his father, a friend said.

``You were more than a brother. You were a confidant and a friend,'' Costin's sister, Mary Barbuzzi said, reading from a letter to her dead brother. ``We will be there for your children.''

She recalled how much her brother loved ``skating, rollerblading and baking cookies'' with his children, and spoke of the close relationship he had with his mother, Joan Parsons.

``You and mom had such a special bond,'' she said, her voice shaking. ``You will always be in her heart . . . We love you and you will be missed so much.''

Michael Costin was declared brain dead shortly after the fight last week

Costin, a self-employed carpenter and recovering alcoholic, had a lengthy criminal record that included drug, assault and weapons charges from the late-1970s through the mid-1990s.

According to family members, most of his problems stemmed from his stormy marriage and ensuing custody battle and from when he was a teenager when his 17-year-old brother was fatally stabbed in the heart by their father, Augustine Costin, who was convicted of manslaughter.

``He wasn't a criminal, he wasn't a bad kid. He had a drinking problem, and there was a problem with the family,'' the elder Costin said, speaking on NBC's ``Today'' show yesterday. Michael Costin recently had won custody of the children from his ex-wife.

Farrell recalled Costin as a ``good man,'' who ``suffered a lot along the way'' but turned his life around and showed up at church every week with his children. The priest said the incident has ``linked forever'' the Costins and the Juntas and highlights the tragic results of unharnessed anger and violence.

``Pride and anger can be virtuous or vicious. Sports can build up or take away. What keeps the balance, friends? Perhaps only radical respect for one another,'' he said.

Steven DiGiovanni, whose son plays on a Lynnfield Youth Hockey team with one of Costin's boys, recalled the slain father as ``laid back'' and ``mild-mannered.'' He said the incident has ripped through the close-knit group of hockey parents, leaving many shocked and sickened.

``We're all very distraught. It's just a tragedy,'' DiGiovanni said. ``Two families are ruined over this.''

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