‘You have this very heavy weight in your stomach.’ Friends devastated by Jassy Correia’s death

Jassy Correia playing with her daughter in June 2018. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff/File/Globe Staff

A high school friend of Jassy Correia, the 23-year-old woman found dead in Delaware last week after being kidnapped when she left a Boston club, remembered her Tuesday as “a great mom” who “didn’t deserve this.”

“Nobody does, but it hits home, it hits a lot harder when you know the person,” said Amari Robinson, 25, who attended the Community Academy of Science and Health in Dorchester with Correia.

Robinson, of Dorchester, echoed the comments of many of Correia’s friends and relatives who have described her as a devoted mother to her 2-year-old daughter, Gabriella, and as someone with a joyful bearing.

“She was very outgoing,” Robinson said. “She could get along with anybody in the room. Not everyone is like that.”

Details of Correia’s death have been wrenching to absorb, Robinson said.

Correia was allegedly kidnapped by Louis D. Coleman III, 32, of Providence, who had Correia’s body hidden in a suitcase in the trunk of his car when Delaware State Police stopped him on Feb. 28, according to court records.

“It’s hard to read,” Robinson said. “It’s hard to put down your phone. It’s hard to watch the news. It’s everywhere. Everybody’s talking about it. . . . We go to the same places. It could have really been anybody, any young female. It’s been tough — you know, you have this very heavy weight in your stomach.”

A wake and funeral for Correia will be held Friday and Saturday at St. Peter Church at 311 Bowdoin St. in Dorchester, the Archdiocese of Boston said Tuesday. Coleman will be returned to Massachusetts to face a federal charge of kidnapping resulting in death, a count that carries a possible death penalty.

He’s seeking court-appointed counsel, legal filings show, and a public defender who represented him during a hearing in Delaware on Monday declined to comment.

Reflecting on Coleman’s alleged crime, Robinson said Tuesday, “It’s never OK to take someone else’s life. You just don’t do that to somebody, especially somebody who’s so innocent.”

Correia had been working at Del Frisco’s restaurant in the Seaport. A GoFundMe page set up for Correia’s family had raised more than $140,000 as of Tuesday morning, surpassing the original goal of $50,000.

“We are looking to help raise money for the family of Jassy and her 2-year-old daughter who was left behind,” the page says. “Please donate anything you can to easy the burden on the family. Any and all additional money raised will be used to setup college fund for Jassy’s daughter. Please help Jassy’s family in this very difficult time of need as we suffer through this horrific tragedy.”

Separately, Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz’s office confirmed last week that Coleman’s arrest has generated “several calls to our State Police Unit” regarding the unsolved murders of two women and three rapes in Brockton in 2013 and 2014. “As with all unsolved cases, State Police will follow up and continue to investigate,” Cruz’s office said in a statement.

Prosecutors haven’t named Coleman as a suspect in any of the unsolved crimes in Brockton, and he was living in California when they occurred.