There is a lot that Faith Ferraiolo doesn’t know about the 2014 death of her father, 48-year-old Vincent “Vinny” Ferraiolo.
“No one knows what happened,” Faith told Dateline. “It was just rumors on Facebook groups. But he was a person. He was my favorite person.”
Faith was 11 years old when her father’s body was found hanging inside his exotic pet shop off Ironbridge Road in Chesterfield, Virginia, on January 3, 2014. “[My family] just said that he died. I didn’t know for a long time what happened,” she said. “There was one moment where my mom had mentioned briefly that alluded to the fact that there was something else going on. But — but, like, no details, nothing.”
Of all the questions Faith has about her father’s death, one is most elusive — did Vinny Ferraiolo die by suicide, or was he murdered?
Now 22, Faith is determined to find the truth.
The Life of Vinny Ferraiolo
Faith has vibrant, poignant memories of her father. “He loved Superman. And he’d dress up for school and, like, just — I don’t think it was for anything,” she told Dateline. “Just like a random Tuesday or something, and he just, like, would go to school, like, decked out in like his Superman stuff — his cape and everything.”
Vinny was a science teacher at Thomas Dale High School in Chesterfield.
“All his students have always just, like, adored him so much,” Faith remembered. “He would do anything to make people laugh.”
Faith told Dateline she makes a conscious effort to embody her father’s spirit. “He just made everything so magical, and he made you see the world in that kind of whimsical way,” she said. “It reminds me to, like, stop taking life so seriously.”
Vinny was also the owner of an exotic animal pet shop. One of his employees was a high school student named Tripp Ford, who said that, despite having four sons of his own, Vinny made Tripp feel like another son. “He was nothing short of a hero,” Tripp told Dateline.
He described Vinny as one of the most beloved members of the Chesterfield community — a “local celebrity.” “He was the best human being I have ever met in my entire life,” Tripp said. “He always only ever inspired me and pushed me to do great things.”
11 years after his death, Tripp continues to be inspired by Vinny. And he — just like Faith — is demanding answers about his death.
The Death of Vinny Ferraiolo
On the night of January 2, 2014, Vinny asked Faith if she wanted to come to the pet store with him the next day. “I think I just, like, wanted to sleep in,” Faith remembered.
She did not go to the store with her father the next morning.
Vinny was scheduled to have a reptile show that day at the store around 10 a.m. According to Faith, her father would show up to work sometime before 8 a.m. whenever he had a show, and would park in the parking lot out front because it was easier to move materials in and out of the store from there. Once done, he would move his car back where he usually parked.
Around 12:30 p.m., a nearby store owner noticed that Vinny’s car was still parked in the parking lot rather than around back, so they went to check on him.
According to Chesterfield Police Department Criminal Investigations Division Captain Randy Horowitz, the store owner found Vinny’s body with a rope around his neck hanging from the ceiling inside the shop. “The call came in at 12:30 from one of the other store owners noting that they had found him,” Capt. Horowitz told Dateline.
Tripp was scheduled to work at the store that day. “I was supposed to meet him at about eight o’clock that morning. I didn’t wake up till about 11,” he said. “The fact that he didn’t call me that morning to wake me up and to let me know to meet him was also strange.” Faith told Dateline she later learned that her father had canceled the show that morning.
Tripp headed to the store shortly after waking up. “I ran up there and then that’s when I saw the first police car pulling up,” he said.
According to Captain Horowitz, Vinny was pronounced dead at 12:51 p.m.
Faith was at home with her siblings when it all happened. She remembers her mother coming inside the house later that evening followed by several family members. As everyone gathered inside the living room and her mother approached her, Faith began to feel uneasy.
“There’s always a moment where you realize something’s not quite right. It was that moment,” Faith recalled. “She just knelt down in front of me — and you can tell she’d been crying — and she just — all she said was, ‘Daddy died.’”
Faith says she did not learn any details about her father’s death in the months after his body was found. She remembers that time as being a blur, the only solid memory being a sense of helplessness. “There were no answers. There was no closure,” she said. “There was nothing. Just a question.”
What happened to Vinny Ferraiolo?
The Investigation
About six months after Vinny’s death, the Office of the Medical Examiner of Virginia declared it a homicide. The Chesterfield Police Department, however, did not agree with that assessment.
“The Medical Examiner was concerned because there were two sets of marks on the neck,” Captain Horowitz explained. The injuries Vinny sustained on his neck were uneven across either side — something the captain says is generally uncommon for people who die by hanging. “It’s not the most common break — to have that break — but we’re not talking, like, one-in-a-million,” he said. “It’s our belief that he attempted to commit suicide and the rope did not hold, and then he was more successful on the second trial.”
Dateline requested a copy of the medical examiner’s report from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia. In an email to Dateline, Central District Administrator LaKeshia Johnson said the office was unable to provide the full report. However, she was able to confirm Vinny’s manner and cause of death. “The manner of death is homicide and the cause of death is ligature strangulation,” Johnson wrote in the email. “Unfortunately, we will not be able to discuss anything additional.”
Tripp Ford believes Vinny’s death was a homicide. He told Dateline that when he arrived at the shop that morning at about the same time as the police, the fish tanks had been moved, blocking both the front door and Vinny’s body from view. “Everything was thrown all over the place,” he said. “He did not do that himself.”
Tripp says he still vividly remembers the way the store looked when he went inside. “There was blood everywhere — in the back office, on the register, on the walls, everywhere up to where his body was hanging,” he said. “I had to clean it myself.”
During his interview with Dateline, Capt. Horowitz addressed Tripp’s recollection of the scene, noting that the door was not barricaded when police arrived. “[Tripp] recalled puddles of blood, and blood spurting onto the walls, and splattered on the walls,” Horowitz said. “There was a small amount of blood — but it wasn’t on the walls, and it wasn’t puddling.”
The captain confirmed that Vinny had wounds on his hands. He also had “a knot on the back of his head and some blood on the ladder he appeared to have used.” According to Horowitz, the ladder was partially knocked over. “There was blood on his hands, pants and face, but no evidence of a laceration,” he said.
“There’s no question that he fell at one point,” Horowitz said of the injury to Vinny’s head. “As far as the wounds on his hands, speaking to people who worked with him — or worked at the store and knew him from the store — said it was not unusual for him to have lots of cuts and bruises on his hands from the way he handled animals. But all those injuries were consistent with the idea that he attempted to commit suicide by hanging and the rope did not hold — and then he made a second attempt, which was successful.”
According to Captain Horowitz, Vinny’s case was closed as a suicide in August of 2014, despite the medical examiner’s assessment. “This occurred after the department received a report from the DFS [Department of Forensic Science] Lab and after consultation with the Commonwealth’s Attorney Office,” he wrote in a follow-up email to Dateline.
During the original investigation, the Chesterfield Police Department used DNA testing technology on a piece of paper with red stains, a swab of a red stain from the microwave, and a piece of paper towel with red stains from the top of a sink. “The lab report indicated that all items tested returned found no foreign DNA and only the DNA of Mr. Ferraiolo,” Captain Horowitz wrote.
In September 2019, Vinny’s case was assigned to a detective in the Unsolved Major Investigations Group of the Chesterfield Police Department for additional review. “After review, a few more items were sent to the DFS for additional testing and they also returned found no foreign DNA and only the DNA of Mr. Ferraiolo,” Captain Horowitz wrote in an email to Dateline. “The case remained closed after the lab results showed no new leads.”
After that detective retired, the investigation was reassigned to another officer within the same group in June 2022. “This detective re-interviewed multiple witnesses and had the computer of Mr. Ferraiolo inspected,” Captain Horowitz wrote. “This examination revealed numerous Google searches indicative of a person experiencing mental health issues.”
According to Captain Horowitz, the Chesterfield Police Department met with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia on June 17, 2024, to discuss the case again. “Essentially, they were not interested in hearing anything different,” he said. “We presented them with our information, they have their thoughts, and we walked away agreeing to disagree.”
Vinny’s daughter, Faith, also disagrees.
“Why the two ligature marks? Why was [the neck broken unevenly]? Why was there a bloody tissue on the ground? Why was he still parked out front?” she questioned. “Why was there no note then? Why would he invite me to go to the store with him that day? Why? It’s like — so much of it did not make sense.”
More than a decade after walking into the pet shop that day, Tripp Ford asks himself those same questions — and comes to the same conclusion. “There’s just no way he just up and decided to do that and to leave his body there for us to discover,” he told Dateline. “That is not something he would have ever done.”
Tripp believes the Chesterfield Police Department mishandled Vinny’s case, claiming they did not conduct a proper thorough investigation into his manner of death.
Captain Horowitz responded to that allegation. “He was a very popular teacher. People cared about him and, from what I can tell, he cared about a lot of people. People don’t want it to be this — but we followed the evidence and that’s what the evidence is showing us,” he told Dateline. “If the question is, ‘Did we take it serious?’ The answer is, ‘Yes.’”
11 Years Later
Ultimately, Faith knows she may never understand her father’s death in the way that she wants to. “I might never get an answer. There might never be anything definite, of course. It’s been so long,” she said.
She does, however, feel comforted by the fact that sharing her father’s story keeps his memory alive. “It’s just the first time I ever felt like I — I could help. I could do something,” she said. “I just want to make him proud.”
Tripp told Dateline he thinks of Vinny often — and hopes for justice. “Shame to whoever did this. I won’t go a day without believing in it and knowing for a fact that he was murdered,” he said. “He was such a great person and it’s a damn shame that he hasn’t been able to rest.”
“Everyone’s like, ‘My dad’s the best.’ Like, my dad really was the best,” Faith said. “I’m 22, almost 23 now. I haven’t had a dad since I was 11. I have never met anyone as caring, as giving, as kind, as loved, as just loved by everyone — as good as my dad was.”
Captain Horowitz says that even though the case is closed, “if there’s new information that comes forward on this case — or any case — we’re always open to hear that,” he said. “And if it raises to the level that we think requires us to reopen it, we’re more than happy to do that.”
Anyone with information about the death of Vinny Ferraiolo should contact the Chesterfield Police Department at 804-748-1251 or Chesterfield Crime Solvers at 804-748-0660.
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