7 Dead In 2 Connecticut Murder-Suicides
A total of seven people died in two separate weekend shootings at Connecticut homes, including an 81-year-old gunman, police said Sunday. Investigators believed both incidents were murder-suicides.
Police said the incidents were not connected.
"There's absolutely no need for anybody to fear that there's somebody dangerous running around with a firearm," said Enfield Police Chief Carl Sferrazza. "We have a pretty good idea of what transpired."
Richard C. Brown, 81, described as an advocate for the mentally retarded, which included his middle-aged son and daughter, shot and killed his 80-year-old wife and his two adult children, Kenneth, 49, and Janice, 53, who visited the parents on weekends.
Brown helped found Friends of Retarded Citizens of Connecticut (FORConn) and served on its board.
"He'd always seemed to me to have two feet on the ground," Ted Walen, the president of FORConn, told the Hartford Courant. "So all this comes as a horrible shock. I just don't understand it."
A two-page note was found in the condominium with the bodies Saturday night, along with about a half-dozen shotguns and rifles.
Police found Brown's three-page letter on the dining room table when they discovered the bodies.
"It wasn't specifically addressed to anyone, but it was clearly left there for us to find," Sferrazza said.
The note was straightforward and gave directions on how to reach out-of-state family members to report the deaths, Sferrazza said. It gave no indication that his wife was aware of his plans.
"I think he had given a lot of thought to this," Sferrazza said. "Clearly there were other options that he could have taken, but he tragically took this option."
Both of the children lived in group homes and had moderate mental retardation and physical problems.
Brown seemed to be in "a catastrophic situation that they couldn't deal with any longer," Enfield Mayor Patrick Tallarita said. "It's terrible that people get to that point where they don't feel that they have any recourse."
In the second incident, about 36 miles away in Cheshire, a 51-year-old man fatally shot his wife and adult stepdaughter Sunday before killing himself, police said. The couple's children ran to a neighbor's house to call 911 when they heard gunfire.
The bodies of Tadeusz Winiarski, his 49-year-old wife Urszula and her 29-year-old daughter Marzena Ladziejewska were discovered in separate rooms of the home, police said.
The couple had divorced in 2006 and the house was up for sale, according to court and real estate records.
Cheshire police Lt. Jay Markella said officers had responded to numerous domestic disturbances at the home, and that Urszula Winiarski and the couple's two young sons had moved out and lived elsewhere in town with Ladziejewska.