This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
When Theresa DeLucia, a 95-year-old mother of four from Long Island, New York, died last month, she had laid out her wishes more than a decade earlier in her last will and testament.
However, the 2007 document may have played a role in her youngest son’s shooting incident, which killed three of her siblings and a niece. Murder–suicide,
Joseph Delucia received one-quarter of the home’s sale price as well as one-quarter of the rest of his mother’s estate. Zillow estimates the property is worth about $900,000.
A photo posted on Facebook shows Joseph Delucia. (Joseph Delucia/Facebook)
DeLucia lived with his mother until her death, but in his will he wrote that “I direct any member of my family who may be residing in the house at the time of my death to vacate the house in order to facilitate such sale.”
He also gave his eldest son, Frank, the authority to enforce this provision.
Apparently fearing that he would be left homeless, Joseph murdered the remainder of his family.
Read Theresa Delucia’s article last will and testament
“In 41 years this is possibly one of the most horrific scenes I have ever witnessed.” Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder told reporters at a news briefing.
He said there were warning signs and if police had been informed the killings might have been prevented.
Police are investigating a murder-suicide that left five people dead. (Fox 5 New York)
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“There was discussion in the community about the distress of this shooter who had decided he didn’t want to leave his home after his mother’s death,” he said. “In the past there was discussion in the community that if you hear gunfire, don’t call the police – it may be too late.”
On the morning of Aug. 25, family members gathered at the Delucia matriarch’s home on Wyoming Court in Syosset, a suburb about 30 miles east, to grab coffee from Starbucks ahead of a planned meeting with a real estate agent to discuss selling the home, police said. New York City.
Responding officers found that the gunman had shot himself, killing himself. They also recovered his 12-gauge shotgun. (Nassau County Police Department)
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Just before noon a neighbor called 911. Police found 59-year-old Joseph Delucia dead on the grass next to a gun.
Inside they found sister Joan Kearns, 69, of Tampa, Florida, brother Frank DeLucia, 64, of Durham, North Carolina, sister Tina Hammond, 64, of neighboring Suffolk County, and their 30-year-old daughter, Victoria.
Nassau County Police responded to Wyoming Court in Syosset, New York, on August 25, 2024, for reports of shots fired and a man lying on the front lawn of a home. (Fox 5 New York)
According to authorities, Joseph Delucia has a history of mental illness but has no significant criminal record except for a drunken driving conviction decades ago. However, under New York’s red flag law, police could have confiscated his firearm, police said.
Nassau Detective Capt. Stephen Fitzpatrick said the killer believed he would be cut out of the will and thrown out on the street when his siblings sold the house.
He told reporters that “because of that belief, he decided that day to take a loaded Mossberg shotgun, a 12-gauge, and approach them in the backyard of the home, and fire 12 shots from the kitchen, several of which struck all four of them.”
Neighbors heard her screaming on the front lawn before Delucia fired a final shot into her chest. A Facebook page in her name shows a gruesome final post, with a New York license plate that reads “DEPRSSED.”
“If anybody thinks somebody has a problem, they should call us,” Fitzpatrick said.
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Local real estate agent Mary Macaluso told the local newspaper Newsday said that She arrived there to visit family and found the block cordoned off with police tape.
This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
