HUDSON, Fla. — A community came together Wednesday night to remember a family now believed to be murdered and burned in a fire pit.
Phillip Zilliot, Rain Mancini and their two children are still considered missing until testing of the remains found confirms what detectives believe to be true.
A friend of the family, Rory Atwood, is in jail and charged with first-degree murder.
Stefanie Mancini believes her daughter was killed and burned in that pit along with Phillip, 6-year-old Karma and 5-year-old Phillip "Philly" Zilliot III.
“I believe they were all together, in that heated fire, and now they're all in heaven and a nice place to live,” she said.
At Veterans Memorial Park, family, friends and strangers held a vigil, honoring four lives they believe are lost.
Stefanie says that Rain was her best friend.
“She was my smile,” Stefanie said. “She always had always had me rolling. She was my baby girl.”
She last saw the family together on Monday, June 10. Detectives believe Rory Atwood killed them two days later. Saturday is when they began searching Atwood’s ten-acre property. They were there again today as they try to prove their case.
“My daughter said a lot of horror stories about him,” Stefanie remembers. “And I just always looked at her like, ‘You sure about this, you know?’”
The family stayed with Stefanie and her husband last year but tried to make it on their own, trying to keep a roof overhead and eventually moving in with Atwood, Phillip’s childhood friend.
“She brought two beautiful children into the world who she struggled in life all the time to keep above water, and she always tried to do right by them,” Stefanie said.
Still in the early stages of her grief, Stefanie remembers her two grandchildren, which were her first.
“Karma was very smart, very,” she said. “Very outdoor smart, like, she knew a lot about insects. She knew a lot about animals. She knew a lot about plants and little Phil, he was just as smart as she was.”
“They were best friends. They loved each other to death. They were just really good kids that did not deserve anything to be done to them at all," Stephanie continued.
The case is sending a shockwave through eastern Pasco County. Stefanie lives only a mile from where she thinks her family was killed
And only a few miles from where a community came together to honor the family and figure out how to move forward.
“Hold your babies close and you never know when it's the wolf at your back door,” she said.
Atwood pleaded not guilty at his first court appearance this week.
Rain and Phillip’s family started a GoFundMe page to help pay for funeral expenses they believe they will need soon.
Investigators haven't told them or us how long confirmation of who was burned in the fire pit will take.