A Syosset man who fatally shot four family members before turning the gun on himself had mental health problems and was distraught over a dispute about his mother’s will, Nassau County Police said Monday.
Joseph DeLucia, 59, had lived with his mother in the home on Wyoming Court his whole life. His siblings had gathered there after her funeral to meet with a realtor and sell the property. Their 95-year-old mother, Theresa DeLucia, died Aug. 19 and was laid to rest on Friday.
Police said DeLucia, thinking he was going to be cut out of the will and “displaced without a place to go,” went to the back of the house and stood in the kitchen, firing 12 shots at his two sisters, his brother and a niece, “striking all four of them multiple times,” Nassau County Det. Capt. Stephen Fitzpatrick said at a press briefing, according to ABC News.
Using a shotgun he acquired, he killed Joanne Kearns, 69, of Tampa, Florida; Frank DeLucia, 64, of Durham, North Carolina; Tina Hammond, 64, and her daughter Victoria Hammond, 30, both of East Patchogue, also on Long Island.
DeLucia then went out front, yelled about what he’d done, sat down in a chair on the lawn and shot himself in the chest, police said.
“In forty-one years, that is probably one of the most horrific scenes I’ve ever seen,” Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder told reporters.
According to Fitzpatrick, DeLucia “had past mental issues, psych issues, that were reported to us.”
“He was kind of a hoarder, spent all his money on his tools and stuff,” Fitzpatrick said, according to ABC News. “The house was pretty much packed with tools and stuff involved in auto mechanics. He lived there all his life, never lived on his own. So you can see the mindset where his world was now changing, 59 years old, and he was panicking.”
Though his siblings had assured him he’d be taken care of, they had told him he would have to move.
Neighbors told police DeLucia had said things like, “If you hear gunshots, don’t bother calling 911, it’ll be too late,” before the shooting and that he had talked of suicide as recently as Friday, NBC News reported. But neighbors did not know he owned a gun and had no inkling DeLucia was capable of such an act, they told Newsday.
“These are things that are disturbing to us as law enforcement as we open so many avenues to ask us for help,” Ryder said. “We are asking our communities to not sit back. Be our eyes, be our ears and let us know what is happening.”
With News Wire Services