In the days before Brianna Welsh was found dead in her Lynn apartment, she had been telling her friends how excited she was to be a new mother. Welsh, 25, had spoken on a video call with one of her close friends, Shaylee Kopellas, and showed her a picture of a recent ultrasound. “All she ever wanted was to be a mom,” Kopellas said as she fought back tears.
“She took care of all her friends and was there when anyone needed her at the drop of a dime. She’s always been there for me.” Welsh was found stabbed to death in her apartment last week after her family requested a well-being check because they hadn’t heard from her, according to a police report.
Authorities said Welsh suffered multiple “sharp force injuries” and charged her boyfriend’s brother, Zachary Vozzella, 26, with her murder . Investigators believe Welsh was killed while her boyfriend, Brendon Vozzella, 24, was in police custody after allegedly assaulting Welsh during a domestic incident. Advertisement Zachary Vozzella was ordered held without bail after he pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
His attorney could not be reached for comment. His next court date is a probable cause hearing set for Sept. 10.
Welsh’s close friends recalled her as a caring, loyal friend who long wanted a family of her own. Kopellas and another close friends, Tory Nesta, said Welsh developed close relationships with their own kids and she seemed destined to be a loving mother herself. “They loved Brianna so much, their auntie Bri Bri,” Nesta said of her own two children.
“She lit up their world.” Nesta said her children missed Welsh after she moved to Lynn in 2023. She said they would sometimes meet up in Boston to take the kids to the New England Aquarium or the Franklin Park Zoo.
“She made every effort to be present in our little humans’ lives, and she loved them so much,” Nesta said. “I could tell she was going to be a great mother, and I really wish she had that opportunity. I would have loved to have her baby in my life, too.
” Advertisement An online fundraiser to support Welsh’s family with funeral expenses had raised more than $16,000 as of Tuesday afternoon. In a description on the fundraising page, her family said Welsh was planning to share news of her baby’s gender with her friends and family last week. “Tragically, she has been taken from us, murdered in her own home,” the family wrote.
“We are all lost without her. She was a bright shining star, that went out before her time.” Welsh’s friends said she grew up in Harwich and graduated in 2017 from Monomoy High School, where she was enrolled in Oak Street Academy, an alternative learning program.
A photo on the academy’s webpage shows Welsh in her cap and gown with some of her classmates and her teacher, George Sowpel. Sowpel and Welsh were close. In an interview, he recalled how proud he was to watch Welsh progress from a quiet underclassman into a confident student who was “courageous and brave” and stood as an example to her classmates.
He remembered one day when the class did a woodworking activity and Welsh was at first hesitant to participate. After some encouragement from Sowpel, Welsh put on her safety goggles and got to work crafting a wooden bowl. “It was the most beautiful bowl and you could just see the light in her eyes, like ‘Wow, I made that,’” Sowpel said.
“She had that fire within her to better herself.” Sowpel said Welsh cared for her classmates and always tried to lift them up with encouragement. He recalled several occasions when Welsh approached him to let him know that a student was having a hard day.
Advertisement “She didn’t have to work at that,” he said. “It was natural to her to be nurturing.” Sowpel and Welsh stayed in touch after graduation.
In 2019, when Sowpel said he came down with a serious illness and was on a ventilator for two months, he said Welsh was one of the first people to reach out to his wife to see how he was doing. “She was a kid who had her own issues, I’m sure, but she put them aside to care about other people,” he said. Meredith Gomes, 25, grew up with Welsh in Harwich and were close friends from elementary school through high school.
“She just loved to be silly and have a good time, even if we were doing nothing,” Gomes recalled in an interview. “You could just sit there in a room with her and vibe to music and be totally content.” Gomes remembered going to Welsh’s house for a Hawaiian-themed birthday party when they were in fifth grade.
She said Welsh’s mother painted their nails and they had “a little spa night.” Later that night, Gomes said Welsh had an idea for them to play with a Ouija board. “She started spelling stuff out and I remember she pretended to act scared for the rest of us and she knocked the Ouija board off the table,” Gomes said.
“We all ran out screaming into the yard and then just started laughing and we ended up playing manhunt for the rest of the night. It’s just one of those silly little kid memories that you don’t really think about, but it showed her personality.” Years later, Gomes said she and Welsh went to their junior prom together with their boyfriends.
After prom, Gomes said several of her friends left to go to an after-party that she didn’t want to attend. Advertisement “She stayed with me after my friends left,” Gomes said of Welsh. “It just showed how loyal she was, even though I knew that she wanted to go off with her other friends.
” Gomes said she and Welsh stopped talking after they had an argument a few years after graduating high school. She said she’s been struggling to process the news of her death. “I still find myself wanting to call her and text her, even though we haven’t spoken in a while, ” Gomes said.
“She was one of the most loyal, caring people I’ve ever met.” Jeremiah Manion of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Nick Stoico can be reached at nick.
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