Charles Joseph Houston was 6-foot-1, weighed 225 pounds and had a thick mustache. "He had a rough exterior, but inside, he was such a mush, especially around children." said Linda Houston, his wife.

He frolicked in his backyard pool with his 2- year-old nieces, read to his 9-year-old nephew, and in general "snuggled with them." He went for walks with them and took them to movies and malls. "He was like a second father," she said.

"But he was a pull-no-punches type of guy," she added. "What you see is what you get. He wouldn't sugarcoat on anything. If you asked him for an opinion, he'd tell you what he really thought, sometimes even things you didn't want to hear."

He and his brother-in-law, Otto Diodato, the father of his nieces and nephew, used to be efficient handymen in their two houses, merely a few yards apart. They'd be constantly concocting projects -- redoing the kitchen countertops, building fences, changing the bathroom tiles -- and actually finishing them. But shortly before the September attack, they had become more like "Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble," his wife said. "They would joke around, enjoy each other's company, and the projects would last forever." Mr. Houston, 42, worked at Euro Brokers. He and his wife were planning to adopt a child next summer.