Good morning. It’s Wednesday. Today we’ll look at how a man on Long Island who was upset over the potential sale of a family home killed four of his family members before taking his own life.
A home nestled into a quiet cul-de-sac on Long Island became the scene of a mass killing when a man, upset over his mother’s death and his family’s plan to sell her home, shot four family members before turning the gun on himself, the police said.
As my colleague Corey Kilgannon reported, the man, Joseph DeLucia, 59, gathered with three of his siblings and a niece to discuss the sale of the home, in Syosset, in Nassau County, with a real estate agent on Sunday. As his family sat sipping Starbucks drinks in the house’s den, he whipped out a shotgun and shot each family member several times.
Then, screaming and dragging a white iron chair to the front lawn from the porch, he sat under a tree and shot himself in the chest.
Patrick Ryder, the Nassau County police commissioner, called it “one of the most horrific scenes” he had ever seen.
DeLucia shot off 12 rounds within his family’s faded blue Cape Cod-style house, but his weapon only had a six-shell capacity, meaning he stopped to reload during the carnage.
He killed his brother, Frank DeLucia, 63; his sisters Joanne Kearns, 69, and Tina Hammond, 64; and Tina’s 30-year-old daughter, Victoria Hammond, according to Detective Captain Stephen Fitzpatrick.
Joseph DeLucia’s only criminal history had been a driving under the influence arrest in 1983. Police officers conducted a wellness check on him at his home in 2022 and determined that he was not a threat.
The authorities said that some of his neighbors had observed signs of DeLucia’s instability developing over time as he yelled angrily and grew increasingly distraught after the recent death of his mother, Theresa DeLucia, 95.
The family’s plan to sell the Syosset home had also became a point of contention for the solitary, unmarried DeLucia.
“He kept saying, ‘I’m going to be homeless — my siblings are not going to help me. They’re just going to sell the house,’” a neighbor, Randi Marquis, said.
Sandy Landsman, a psychologist living across the street from DeLucia, said he was often guarded with neighbors and appeared to struggle emotionally.
“It never occurred to me he would do this, but I knew he had a very hard time after his mom’s death and was afraid he was going to have to leave the house,” Landsman said.
After hearing DeLucia’s screams and the gunshot on Sunday, his first thought was that DeLucia had killed himself, Landsman said.
Still, none who took notice of DeLucia’s unraveling brought their concerns to the authorities, police officials said.
Commissioner Ryder said that some neighbors said DeLucia had told them not to bother calling the police if they heard gunshots because it would already be too late. If the authorities had known of DeLucia’s threats in the past, they could have tried to seize his gun, he added.
Although DeLucia legally owned the 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, it could have become an illegal possession if he had been reported as mentally unstable, said Fitzpatrick, the detective captain. New York State red-flag laws allow authorities to confiscate guns from individuals at risk of harming others or themselves.
Police officials said they found old psychiatric medication in the home among a cluttered collection of auto mechanics’ tools.
“He was living there his entire life, never lived on his own,” Fitzpatrick said. “So you can see the mind-set where his world was now changing, at 59 years old, and he was panicking.”
Weather
Expect a hot, mostly sunny day, with high temperatures around the mid-90s. Showers and thunderstorms are possible in the afternoon and evening. Temperatures will drop overnight to the low 70s under a mostly cloudy sky.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until Monday (Labor Day).
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METROPOLITAN diary
Chai times
Dear Diary:
Scene: One of the few old-time diners left in New York City. It’s crowded. A fresh-faced young man, maybe 22, takes a seat at the counter.
“What can I get you?” the server asks.
“Do you guys do chai?” the young man asks earnestly.
“What?”
“Chai,” he repeats. “Chai latte?”
The server ducks into the clattering kitchen. Cursing, laughing and screaming are heard.
She returns.
“We have Lipton,” she says.
— Barbara Lippert
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Glad we could get together here. Lola Fadulu will be here tomorrow. — S.C.
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Luke Caramanico and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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The post A Dispute Over a House Led to a Mass Killing on Long Island appeared first on New York Times.