Tristan Allegra

PORT ST. LUCIE — Students and staff at Mariposa Elementary School remember Tristan Allegra, 8, “very kind and helpful, cool and funny,” according to a counselor who helped them cope with the third-grader’s Christmas Day death.

“Tristan was a popular kid, very well-liked,” said Robert O’Neill, a St. Lucie County School District psychologist, one of three counselors who went to the school Monday and Tuesday as classes resumed after the holiday break.

Sign Tristan’s guest book.

According to a Port St. Lucie Police Department arrest affidavit, Tristan died after his mother, Eryn Allegra, of the 2200 block of Southeast Bowie Street, smothered him in his sleep early Christmas morning in a hotel room. She is held without bond on a charge of first-degree murder.

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JENSEN BEACH — A funeral Mass for Tristan Allegra, an 8-year-old boy who was killed Christmas Day, allegedly smothered to death by his mother, will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at St. Martin De Porres Catholic Church, 2555 N.E. Savannah Road, according to All County Funeral Home & Crematory.

The mother, 31-year-old Eryn Allegra, who is in the St. Lucie County Jail on a first-degree murder charge, was not listed as a survivor. Tristan was a student at Mariposa Elementary School in Port St. Lucie. (more…)

Once it was a sword. Gunshots rang death on several occasions. And three times a young life ended during the care of a parent.

The list of homicides for Martin and St. Lucie counties totaled 17 in 2008. Victims were as old as 71 and as young as 6 weeks.

Among the most shocking were those involving children.

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Tristan Allegra

STUART — An account has been set up to collect donations to help make funeral arrangements for Tristan Allegra.

People interested in donating can do so by contacting any of the four branches of Gulfstream Business Bank and citing the Tristan Allegra case.

Port St. Lucie police say eight-year-old Tristan was killed by his mother, 31-year-old Eryn Allegra, on Christmas morning. She told investigators she had been planning for months to commit suicide after she killed her only son.

An anonymous client of a Stuart-based law firm asked the office to set up the bank account late Monday afternoon.

The following are the phone numbers for the bank’s four branches:

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By JENNIFER SORENTRUE

Administrators at the elementary school that 8-year-old Tristan Allegra had attended since kindergarten said Saturday that there were no warning signs that the boy was in any danger.

Mariposa Elementary School Principal Craig Logue said Tristan was a “wonderful little boy” and a “very bright” student who had many friends and was adored by the school’s staff.

Despite his small stature, Tristan had a deep voice that set him apart from other students, Logue said.

“This is a child that meant a lot to all of us,” Logue said. “I can’t believe that I am going to walk in on (Jan.) 5th and Tristan is not going to be there. He was one of the boys I said good-bye to” before the winter break.

The third-grader was smothered to death by his mother, Eryn Allegra, as he slept in a hotel room on Christmas morning, according to Port St. Lucie police. She has been charged with first-degree murder.

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Eryn Allegra

By ANA X. CERON and ANDREW MARRA

PORT ST. LUCIE — On Christmas morning, Eryn Allegra pushed her son’s little face into a hotel pillow and let go when he stopped kicking.

That’s what Allegra, 31, told police hours after she said she had given 8-year-old Tristan pills to swallow and then smothered him as he slept.

Tristan Allegra

Now Allegra sits in the St. Lucie County jail, where she faces a first-degree murder charge.

“She was the kind of girl who never talked things out,” Allegra’s grandmother, Catherine Whiting, said Friday at her Stuart home. “Never.”

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