Community Rocked by 2 Young Brothers' Deaths Following Fight Over Food

Some students and teachers went home for the day Thursday after hearing news about what happened inside a small Hudson home Wednesday evening. Others made cards to help process their loss and say goodbye to classmates they called friends.

Crisis counselors made themselves available to students at Hudson Elementary, Middle schools, just one day after a dispute between brothers turned deadly, rocking the small Pasco County community.

According to the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office, three brothers were home alone eating dinner on Wednesday evening when an argument about food erupted. Kevin Pimentel, 12, is accused of getting a gun during that dispute and shooting and killing his 6-year-old brother Brady. Deputies say Kevin then turned the gun on his 16-year-old brother Trevor, wounding him, before shooting and killing himself.

The boys’ mother, Helen Campochiaro, 38, is a single mom who works several jobs to support her family, the sheriff’s office was quoted by TBO as saying. Campochiaro was not home at the time, neither was her 18-year-old son, who authorities have not named.

“They absolutely need your prayers,” Sheriff Chris Nocco was quoted by the site as saying. “There are a lot of questions right now that we don’t have answers to.”

See Also:

• Young Brothers’ Fight Over Food Turned Deadly, Deputies Say
• Sisters Charged in Brother’s Death

While those answers may never come, school district officials in Pasco spent Thursday helping students at Hudson Elementary and Middle schools cope with the news.

Grief counselors visited Kevin’s seventh-grade gifted classes at Hudson Middle School to break news of the shooting to students. Recorded phone messages were also sent to parents at both schools. Hudson Elementary is sending a separate message home to students in Brady’s first-grade class to give parents a chance to break the news themselves, district spokeswoman Linda Cobbe said.

“The first grade class was the only group that was told that something ‘very sad’ had happened to Brady,” she said.

Grief counseling has also been made available to students at Chasco Middle School where Kevin attended the sixth-grade, Cobbe noted.

Trevor Pimentel is a ninth-grader at Hudson High in the morning and attends Marchman Technical College’s culinary academy in the afternoon. Crisis teams were not set to either school, Cobbe noted.

Trevor suffered non-life-threatening wounds and is expected to recover, the sheriff’s office said.

Cobbe said about 30 students sought out grief counseling on Thursday and middle school students created cards as part of the efforts to help them cope. At nearby Fox Hollow Elementary where the family’s older boys attended grade school, a few teachers were so stricken by the news they chose to go home for the day, she said.

Crisis teams will return to schools Friday and may stay on into next week, Cobbe said.

“They suspect that more students may seek out their services tomorrow after they’ve received the news at home,” Cobbe said.

The schools are also reaching out to Helen Campochiaro to offer support.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with Ms. Campochiaro and their family,” Superintendent Kurt Browning said. “She is dealing with a nightmare no parent should have to endure.”

Photos of Kevin (photo 1) and Trevor Pimentel (photo 2) and cards for the family courtesy of Pasco County Schools. A photo of Brady was not available.

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