When a family of four was brutally murdered in New Jersey Friday, rumours started.

Hossam Armanious, 37, his wife, Amal Garas, 37, and their two daughters, Sylvia, 15, and Monica, 8 were found gagged and stabbed. Armanious was a copitic Christian immigrant from Egypt.

During the funeral yesterday, tensions between Orthodox mourners and Muslims broke into yelling, shoving and fist fights. Police had to break up the crowd.

When a muslim sheik walked into the funeral service yelling began. The priest begged people for calm. It is believed in Egypt that those of another faith group showing up to a funeral is tantamount to ’spitting on their graves.’

To ask immigrants who have faced persecution to trust police to do their job is difficult. Because Mr. Armanious was active online about his faith, he did receive at least one death threat for expressing his beliefs. And in the grief and shock of the murders, those left to mourn find it hard to believe these murders might be for reasons other than long standing tensions between faith groups.

And solving the murders has put New Jersey police under pressure. If it turns out robbery or another motive absent of faith is found, and the perpetrators caught, all the justice in the world won’t bring this family back or settle the fear and mistrust.