Politics
A Dispute Over a House Led to a Mass Killing on Long Island
Joseph DeLucia became increasingly distraught after his mother died and his siblings moved to sell the family home, the police said.
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.
Joseph DeLucia owned a gun legally, the authorities said.Credit…Dave Sanders for The New York Times
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.
