Friends are remembering and mourning Cynthia Jean Lanchester

Friends are remembering and mourning Cynthia Jean Lanchester, 76, the Easton woman police said was murdered by her grandson on Saturday. She was an active member of her community with a passion for education, volunteering, and helping those in need. Betsy Holcombe, a parishioner at St. Matthew’s Chapel in Sugar Hill, which Lanchester also attended during the chapel’s summer season, and of All Saints Episcopal Church in Littleton, to which Lanchester belonged, learned about the loss on Sunday morning. “She was a friend and the loss is just devastating,” Holcombe, of Sugar Hill, said Monday. “Not only the loss, but the violence of her demise is just really hard. Lanchester’s husband, Robert Lanchester, died of natural causes on Aug. 13 at 83. Just a week before her death, on Sept. 21, Cynthia Jean was among those attending his memorial service at All Saints Episcopal Church in Littleton.