Slain employee planned to quit group home job over safety fears
Brother says working alone was a concern
Renee Greco was so unnerved by working alone at night in a Lockport group home for troubled teenagers that she was on the verge of quitting.
Her brother, Anthony Greco, and a close friend said Wednesday she told them she planned to give her two weeks’ notice so she could work in a salon while she pursued her dream job as a youth counselor.
“She handled it, but it’s kind of nerve-racking when you have between four, five or six teenage boys, some 18 or 19 years old. You never know,” said Lisa Fullone, a close friend of Greco’s since high school.
Greco, 24, was killed Monday night when, Lockport police said, she was beaten to death by two residents of Avenue House in Lockport who are believed to have hatched a plan to conceal the theft of $160.
It was a tragic ending for a young woman who had laid out a path toward a future in social work.
She had taken the job at Avenue House in Lockport two years ago because she wanted to work with troubled youth and build her references for a future job as a youth counselor, her brother said.
She earned an associate’s degree in human services in May through Empire State College.
And she planned to eventually work toward bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
Greco liked her job and felt she was making a difference, her brother and friend said, but she was also aware of its risks.
Greco also needed the health insurance that came with the position, and she hoped that wider opportunities in social work would open up as she earned higher degrees, her brother said.
Fullone said Greco enjoyed making dinner for the teenage boys, taking them on outings and engaging them in games and other activities.
“What they really needed was attention,” Fullone said. “She easily could have sat there and watched TV with them all day long. . . . She really tried to make a good experience for them.”
Greco was the only employee on duty Monday night at Avenue House, a six-bed group home run by New Directions Youth & Family Services. Police said two teenagers threw a blanket over her head while she was playing cards with other residents in the home. She was found dead in the house shortly after 9:30 p. m., not long before her shift was scheduled to end.
Anthony J. Allen, 18, and Robert J. Thousand, 17, both of Rochester, have been charged with second-degree murder, robbery and burglary.
Officials at New Directions Youth & Family Services have closed Avenue House as they take a closer look at what happened Monday night to try to determine whether any procedures could be improved. They also want to give the staff and residents some time to mourn Greco’s death.
“I would say it’s on hold for an immediate reopening,” administrative director Joseph Gallagher said, suggesting that it may take a month or more.
Fullone said she hopes Greco’s death can bring greater security measures in group homes for troubled youth. She said she had just talked to Greco on Friday night about what would happen if she was ever attacked.
“You can’t overpower five boys,” Fullone said. “It doesn’t matter who you are, especially being a female and being with that many boys. It’s not that safe. I don’t know how the system can say it’s OK to leave a female with five boys.”
Greco, who loved karaoke and live music, had moved into an apartment in Buffalo about three weeks ago when her brother, mother and stepfather moved to Texas. She had a wide circle of friends and talked to her mother and brother by phone and text messages several times a day.
Greco’s father, David, died from cancer the day after she turned 21. Patrick Moran, a family friend, said it was then that she began to really focus on her dream of helping others.
“I think the turning point in her life actually came when her father died,” Moran said. “She grew up a lot more. She seemed to take life more seriously. She started to see the big picture more.”
Greco had taken cosmetology courses during high school and she had planned to take a job at a new salon to help pay the bills while she continued in school, her brother said.
“She was really happy. She was doing really good,” said Fullone, who hung out with her friend Friday and Saturday night. “You never expect things like this to happen to your friends. It’s sad that somebody who really tried their best to do good for people gets treated like this.”
Anthony Greco said his sister didn’t learn until after she was in training for the job at Avenue House that some of the teenagers might be aggressive and were court-ordered to live in the group home. Greco also asked when she was hired if there had ever been an employee attacked in the home and was told that had never happened, her brother said.
Anthony Greco said the problems that prompted her to want to leave happened mostly in the last six months.
Neighbors also noticed a change at Avenue House in recent months.
Barb Chunco, who has lived next door to the group home for five years, said kids from Avenue House used to mingle in the neighborhood and were fairly pleasant.
“In the last year, there’s been a totally different group of kids. I know all kids swear, but these kids were running around the neighborhood yelling the F-word,” Chunco said. “It made me nervous, the way they were acting. They were acting, I don’t know if I should say this word, thuggish. They were acting like they were invincible.”
Chunco said that in the past six months, police calls to the group home had become much more frequent, something City Police Chief Lawrence Eggert also said during a news conference Tuesday.
Ed Collingwood, who has lived across the street from Avenue House for 30 years, said it appeared to him Greco was intimidated by her young charges.
Collingwood said he knocked on the door one Saturday morning last winter to complain about loud music coming from the group home, and Greco came to the doorand told him: “I tried. I can’t handle them.”
“I said, ‘Then call the police.’ She said, ‘Could you call them?’ ” Collingwood recalled. “That’s when I had an indication that these young women they hired couldn’t handle it. . . . I thought I should tell someone. I feel kind of guilty.”
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