WOONSOCKET, R.I. (AP) – Family and friends of the victim of a suspected serial killer were comforted on Tuesday by a preacher who told them the young mother of two, who had been involved in prostitution, is in heaven, her tears wiped away by a forgiving God.

Stacie Goulet is one of three women police believe were murdered by Jeffrey Mailhot, a local man who’s been charged in the cases. Goulet, 24, was last seen July 3 shortly after a fireworks display in a city park. More than three weeks later, police located human remains at a Johnston landfill, and the state medical examiner identified them as Goulet’s.

On Tuesday, Goulet’s parents joined about 100 family members and friends to bid farewell at a funeral service. The family and close friends sat in one room, shielded from reporters, at the T. Lauzon Funeral Home.

The Rev. Don Parker, interim pastor of St. James Episcopal Church in Woonsocket, was the only speaker at the service. He tried to soothe grieving relatives, saying Goulet was a good daughter and mother who met Jesus the moment she died and had come “home.”

“If asked, I’m sure Stacie would have said she would have liked to live for another 75, or 80, years. But on one summer night, through violence, her life was ended.”

He added: “God will wipe away every tear from her eyes.”

Goulet’s parents, Raymond and Deborah Boerger, walked out of the funeral home with Goulet’s young children, Dana and Kimberly. Deborah Boerger, her face red and puffy, held Kimberly by one hand, as the child cradled a toy airplane with a flesh-colored, smiling face for a cockpit against her chest with the other. Raymond Boerger, his eyebrows furrowed, held onto Dana. They did not speak.

Goulet was buried at a cemetery in Bellingham, Mass, just over the Rhode Island state line. She’s the only one of the three missing women whose remains have been identified. Christine Dumont and Audrey Harris are the other presumed victims. Dumont was last seen leaving a friend’s car on April 23. Harris vanished on Feb. 9, 2003, after telling her mother in a telephone call she would visit her that day.

Goulet was a Woonsocket native and worked as a cashier at several businesses. Her life began to spin out of control more than a year ago after a messy split with Stephen Kreig, the father of her children, the Boergers told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

She turned to prostitution to help pay child support after losing custody of them to Kreig, Raymond Boerger said, and was arrested three times. She was pregnant with another man’s child when she was killed, according to her parents.

“She was just having a hard time. She was mixed up with the wrong crowd,” Raymond Boerger said.

Police say the 33-year-old Mailhot lured the women to his home, murdered, and dismembered them. He allegedly put the remains in garbage bags and discarded them in trash bins throughout this riverside mill town, according to police. Mailhot is being held at the state prison as a grand jury reviews charges. He had no criminal record, and had held a steady job, according to police.