The man, who lived with his recently deceased mother in a house on Long Island, New York, killed his mother, three siblings, and his niece on Sunday before taking his own life with a revolver, according to the police.
Detective Capt. Stephen Fitzpatrick of the Nassau County Police stated during a press conference on Monday that the man, Joseph DeLucia Jr., 59, thought he would be removed from his mother’s will and relocated.
Officials said that on Sunday, two days following his mother’s funeral, DeLucia shot his siblings, Frank DeLucia, 71; Joanne Kearns, 69; and Tina Hammond, 64, together with Hammond’s daughter, Victoria Hammond, 30. Mother Theresa DeLucia, who was 95 years old, passed away on August 19; Fitzpatrick stated that her funeral was held on August 23.
While Hammond and her daughter resided somewhere else on Long Island, DeLucia and his mother lived in Syosset while his two siblings lived out of state. Manhattan is about 35 miles away from Syosset.
Fitzpatrick stated that the family had met with a realtor at the matriarch’s house to talk about selling it.
“The gunman’s perception was that he was being cut out of the will and that he would be displaced with nowhere to go,” Fitzpatrick stated. “Because of that perception, he decided that day to get a loaded Mossberg shotgun, 12 gauge, approach them in the rear area of the house and from the kitchen, fired 12 shots, striking all four of them multiple times.”
Fitzpatrick claimed that after he had “shouted indiscriminately about what had happened” on the lawn, he shot himself. Around midday, a neighbor heard DeLucia on the lawn and dialed 911. At the site, all five people were declared deceased.
“The entire family is now gone,” Fitzpatrick stated.
Fitzpatrick stated that DeLucia “was being taken care of but he would have to relocate” from the house he had lived in his entire life, according to his surviving relatives.
Fitzpatrick called DeLucia, a mechanic for a car dealership, a hoarder and said there were a ton of tools in the residence.
“So you could see the mindset, where his world is now changing at 59 years old and he was panicking,” Fitzpatrick stated.
Fitzpatrick stated that although reports of DeLucia’s mental health problems had been made to police, those reports had not yet been verified by the authorities.
In 2022, Fitzpatrick said, police had visited the residence to conduct a wellness check on him. At that time, they did not believe he posed a threat to anyone, including himself, and Fitzpatrick had not shown any behavior that would have led them to take him against his will.
In his 41 years of law enforcement, Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder characterized the conditions inside as some of the worst he had ever seen.
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People were urged to come forward if they suspected someone was mentally ill by Ryder and Fitzpatrick.
“We’re not saying this incident could’ve been averted, but maybe it could’ve,” Fitzpatrick stated.
According to Fitzpatrick, investigators are currently examining the pump-action shotgun’s serial number and the place of purchase.
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