The Long Island man who murdered four family members before committing suicide in his late mother's home was “some kind of hoarder” who spent all his money on tools, authorities said Monday.
The mentally disturbed killer Joseph DeLucia Jr., 59, of Syosset, worked as an auto mechanic at a local car dealership – and his life seemed to revolve around his job, said Nassau County Police Captain Stephen Fitzpatrick.
“He was kind of a hoarder and spent all his money on tools and stuff,” Fitzpatrick said at a press conference on Monday. “The house was pretty much crammed with tools and stuff that belonged to an auto mechanic.”
But things changed quickly for DeLucia, a former emergency medical technician. His 95-year-old mother had died last week, and now his family wanted to sell the Wyoming Court home he had never left, Fitzpatrick said.
According to the police report, DeLucia then became enraged and took out his anger on his three siblings and his 30-year-old niece, whom he shot with a Mossberg shotgun in the study of his house around noon on Sunday.
“He's lived there his whole life, never alone,” Fitzpatrick said. “So you could see his mindset as his world changed and he was panicking.”
After killing the victims – Joanne Kearns, 69, of Tampa, Florida; Frank DeLucia, 64, of Durham, North Carolina; Tina Hammond, 64, of East Patchogue; and niece Victoria Hammond, 30, of East Patchogue – DeLucia turned the shotgun on himself and ended it all.
