BOSTON -- As family and friends gathered at an East Boston church Wednesday to say goodbye to a father of three who was stabbed and robbed while delivering a pizza, friends of those accused in the crime are searching for answers.

Shortly after 10 a.m. Wednesday, the casket of Richel Nova, 58, was carried into Most Holy Redeemer Church in East Boston.

Hundreds of mourners turned out for Nova's wake Tuesday night.

Michel Andre St. Jean, 20, Alexander Emmanuel Gallett, 18, and Yamiley Mathurin, 17, were arraigned in West Roxbury Municipal Court Tuesday and ordered held without bail.

Prosecutors said the trio lured Nova to a vacant Hyde Park House over the weekend, robbed him of $100 and stabbed him to death, fleeing in his car with a bloody box of pizza.

As Nova was honored and remembered by those who knew and loved him, Aline Valery, a friend of the trio accused in the slaying, said she is shocked.

"I was like, is this a joke, like, is this for real? I couldn't believe it," Valery said.

Just after the slaying, they showed up at Valery's home.

"Alex has shirt and shorts. He had blood all over the shirt and his pants," she said.

Valery has known St. Jean for only a few months. But Gallett had been staying with her family. She said she was closest to Yamiley Mathurin, and they went to church together.

"Very good person. That is why I am so shocked she'd be a part of this. She is warm-hearted, she really is," she said. "I was reading the Herald and I couldn't believe how they said it was planned. It's crazy they left the guy there to die."

Valery said she does not have sympathy for her three friends, just Nova's family.

Investigators said the big break in the case came from surveillance cameras, which showed the trio leaving the house with the box of pizza. Prosecutors said after the attack, the three ate the pizza from the blood-stained box.