A man distraught over his mother’s recent death – as well as his family’s plan to sell the home where he had spent his entire life – fatally shot three of his older siblings as well as a niece before killing himself on Sunday on New York’s Long Island, according to investigators.
The shocking violence attributed to 59-year-old Joseph DeLucia Jr seems to fit the definition of a type of crime known since the 1980s as family annihilations. The overwhelming majority of these cases involve a male killer armed with a gun who ultimately kills himself after murdering multiple close family members.
