Funeral: Over 300 grieve in home village of Talovics

TALOVICI, Bosnia — More than 300 people crowded around the open casket of Sulejman Talovic on Saturday as it sat in the yard in front of the house where he lived as a child.

A few kissed his face, others filmed with video cameras, a woman wailed with uncontrollable grief. Most simply walked past and took a last look at the youth whose violence and death shocked all.

Tavolic's shooting spree at Salt Lake City's Trolley Square on Feb. 12 left six dead, including himself; four others were seriously wounded and hospitalized. As sometimes happens with people born in the tiny villages of Bosnia, his body was returned to his hometown for burial.

Nearly all the mourners were relatives of the 18-year-old's parents, said Suljo Talovic, his father.

The Talovic family, refugees from the Bosnian war of 1992-95, moved to Salt Lake City when the son was about 10. Besides the parents, who are residents of Salt Lake City, travelers from America ncluded relatives who now live in Florida.

Scattered by the war, many here made a difficult and long trek to reach the village, which is named for the family.

From Bosnia's capital, Sarajevo, Talovici is about a two-hour drive. Narrow roads curve through often difficult mountain terrain. The view changes from towns to farms to cliff-side mines, snowy fields, rolling mountains and tall straw piles in front of brick houses. Dense fog obscures the landscape in places.

The final three miles are up a steep, single-vehicle dirt trail to a village where several homes are still in ruins from the war of 1992-95. Many who came to the funeral traveled in buses that did not attempt the last leg.

The lid of the gray metallic casket was closed, and Sulejman Sulejmanovic, the imam whose region includes this village, led the gathering in prayers.

He "asks all the people here, would they forgive him because he's moving on to a different world," said Nedim Hasic, a journalist from Sarajevo, who helped the Deseret Morning News. "So everybody says we are forgiving him, three times."

Hasic said at at least three women fainted. They were carried to places where the crowd was less dense.

Men lifted the casket from cinderblock supports and carried it uphill above the home, placing it at the edge of a stubble-filled cornfield. There, with blocks under the lower end to make the casket level, Sulejmanovic and two other imams led prayers. Men and boys stood in ranks, about 65 people long and four or five deep, and responded with ritual gestures, moving hands to face.

Meanwhile, women held services inside the village's homes.