The family of the man accused in the fatal stabbing of a Saco woman in a supermarket last week says it plans to set up a fund to help the woman’s family.

Jeremey Hopkins, the brother of suspect Connor S. MacCalister, said Monday night that their cousin, Wallace Clark, is creating a fund on GoFundMe – a website used to raise money for personal causes – to benefit the family of Wendy Boudreau. Nothing related to Wendy Boudreau could be found on the site late Monday.

A 59-year-old mother of four adult children who had nine grandchildren, Boudreau died Wednesday after MacCalister stabbed her in the neck near the ice cream freezers of the Shaw’s in Saco, police said. MacCalister, 31, had planned the attack for about a month, but Boudreau was chosen at random, according to a police affidavit released Thursday.

Clark, who lives in Haverhill, Massachusetts, could not be reached for comment Monday, but he told the Associated Press that his family is “devastated” and its “heart is first and foremost” with the Boudreau family.

“It’s awful that a family has to go through this for no reason,” Clark told the AP. “This weekend has been emotional. It has been turmoil, to say the least. It’s no excuse. It should never have happened.”

The announcement that MacCalister’s family wants to help the Boudreaus came one day after a community prayer vigil for Wendy Boudreau drew about 400 people to a church in Saco and a day before her funeral Tuesday at Thornton Academy in Saco.

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Hopkins, 30, said money may not help ease the Boudreau family’s suffering, but his family believes it has to try to do something to demonstrate its regret over what happened.

“I still have no idea why this happened,” said Hopkins, who lives in Saco and is employed as a security patrol officer.

MacCalister is being held without bail at the York County Jail.

MacCalister, who was born Tanisha Hopkins but identifies as a transgender male, changed his name about seven years ago, Hopkins said.

He said MacCalister graduated with honors from Biddeford High School in 2003. After high school, he moved in with their mother, Patricia Rae Hopkins, who at the time had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

“They basically took care of each other,” he said.

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Patricia Hopkins died in July 2014 at age 68, leaving Hopkins, MacCalister and a sister.

“She was Connor’s protector,” Hopkins said of their mother.

After their mother’s death, Hopkins said he started looking after his brother, making sure that MacCalister had enough money for rent and food, paying his bills and driving him to appointments.

Hopkins also acted as his brother’s representative SSI (Social Security Income) payee. MacCalister lived alone in a Saco apartment – just one street over from Boudreau’s home. He did not have a driver’s license and walked to the supermarket to buy groceries.

“Connor had a lot of anxiety issues,” his brother said. Those issues – Hopkins couldn’t provide an exact diagnosis – interfered with MacCalister’s quality of life.

On the day that Boudreau died, Hopkins gave his brother $2 to buy a Snickers at Shaw’s. His behavior seemed fine.

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“Him acting the way he did was 100 percent unexpected,” Hopkins said. “It rips my heart out for what the police said he did. If there was anything on earth that I could have done, I would have stopped him. Wendy Boudreau didn’t deserve what happened to her.”

The funeral ceremony for Boudreau will be held at 1 p.m. Tuesday at Thornton Academy’s Garland Auditorium, 438 Main St., Saco. A reception will be held at the high school after the service, according to Boudreau’s obituary. Arrangements are being handled by the Cote Funeral Home in Saco.

Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at:

dhoey@pressherald.com


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