Five members of a family were found fatally shot inside and outside a home in Syosset, Long Island, in an apparent murder-suicide, Nassau County police said Sunday.
Officers responding to calls of shots fired around noon found a man dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound outside the suburban Wyoming Court residence and four others inside the home, authorities said. A police medic pronounced all five victims dead, and a homicide investigation has been opened.
“I live around the corner and it’s crazy,” a neighbor who did not give his name told News12 Long Island. “Nothing like it [has] “It has happened before.”
Police did not release details, but neighbors said the family’s 95-year-old matriarch had recently died and the family was preparing to sell the home.
Theresa Martha DeLucia died last Monday and was buried Friday, Newsday reported. A local real estate agent said she had an appointment to see the Delucias before family members who had traveled from Florida for the funeral returned.
“I was meeting them,” Mary Macaluso told Newsday. “The mother had just died and they were selling the house.”
She was asked to give her opinion on what needed to be done to prepare the house for sale, she added.
“I heard bang bang bang several times,” neighbor Yongmei Li, who lives just behind the house, told Newsday. “I thought it was construction.”
With News Wire Services
