Long Island

Parente family tragedy

The porcelain figurines haven't moved from the well-appointed dining room. The sheet music is open on the girls' <a href="/topics/Baldwin%2C_NY">Baldwin</a> baby grand. A tiny doll still sits in a dollhouse, holding a teddy bear. 
It's what William and Betty Parente and their daughters, Stephanie, 19, and Catherine, 11, left behind in their <a href="/topics/Garden_City%2C_NY">Garden City</a> home before their deaths in <a href="/topics/Baltimore">Baltimore</a> last year. 
Authorities say William killed the entire family and then himself in a <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a> hotel room, leaving behind a trail of angry creditors, a $5 million life insurance trust and a mystery as to why. 
"It's very upsetting to go in there," said Betty's cousin, Joseph Mazzarella, a <a href="/topics/North_Bellmore%2C_NY">North Bellmore</a> funeral director. "It's 90 percent the way they left it. It's where my cousin lived." 
The family's belongings were set to be sold Saturday to help settle the estate. But the sale was canceled abruptly Thursday night, with organizers citing the weather and other undisclosed factors. It's unclear when it will be rescheduled. 
"We don't know yet whether we're going to go forward at this point," said Eric Milgrim, the <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> public administrator, appointed by the Surrogate's Court to oversee William Parente's estate after his surviving relatives didn't want to be involved. 
He said there might be an auction instead of a tag sale in the future. "We're just re-evaluating a few things," he said. 
Mazzarella said Thursday night he wasn't notified of the sale and found out from friends on Monday. 
"I should have been notified," Mazzarella said. 
The sale was set up by Tag Sales by Mona. Owner Mona Scavo declined to comment. 
Milgrim said: "We will be cooperating with Mr. Mazzarella as we have been doing throughout the case in rescheduling an auction." 
The sale was one of several efforts the county was making to wind down the family's legal affairs. Milgrim's office is also dealing with angry investors who say they lost millions when Parente died and sifting through records the FBI seized in a resulting investigation. Agents can't look at the documents because of attorney-client privilege, an FBI spokesman said Thursday. 
Setting up an auction might not be easy. Richard Maltz, of the auctioneer David R. Maltz and Co. in <a href="/topics/Plainview%2C_NY">Plainview</a>, said his company had already passed on a chance to auction off the Parentes' belongings because it was worth less than $20,000 - the minimum needed to make a profit. Court records say the house's contents are worth $14,385. 
Any sale or auction will likely make up a small part of what's distributed to heirs or creditors, compared to the Parentes' $1.5 million in real estate and the $5 million insurance trust. 
A full-scale court battle over the money is raging between Betty's family and those who invested with Parente. 
At least 35 investors say in court papers they lost about $31 million, money they say they were told was being loaned to Parente's construction company clients. They were promised returns of 12 percent to 14 percent. It's unknown what happened to the money. 
The insurance trust presents complicated legal questions. Betty and the children were beneficiaries, but the trust had no provisions for them all dying before William, court records show. No will for either William, 59, or Betty, 58, has been found. 
For Betty's family to inherit anything, <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> Surrogate's Court Judge John Riordan must hold a hearing to determine William's culpability in his family's demise, court papers say. Though a <a href="/topics/Baltimore">Baltimore</a> County police investigation concluded Parente was at fault, his guilt must be found in court, court papers say. A hearing hasn't been scheduled. 
The judge could award the insurance without a hearing - separate from the real estate and property - to Parente's estate and the investors by deciding that William's guilt doesn't matter under state law. Betty's heirs lost all rights when she died first, Milgrim's attorney said in court papers.

Nassau

LIPARE26

Planned sale of Parente family belongings canceled

The <a href="/topics/Baltimore">Baltimore</a>-area hotel where police say a Garden City man killed his wife and daughters had investigated a tip the same day from newlyweds who reported hearing a woman's screams and suffocating breaths coming from a nearby room. 
But the staff member the hotel sent to investigate "could find no evidence of a disturbance." 
The sounds haunt Philip Gregg, the groom, almost a year after he heard them. "Once you've heard that type of thing - someone's last breath - you don't forget that sound," said Gregg. "You just learn to put it in a dark compartment and lock it up." 
Gregg, who made those comments in an interview last week, also said he doesn't believe the hotel can be expected to find the source of every noise complaint. 
The noise revelation is contained in recently released records on the case from <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a> authorities, where, police said, William Parente, a <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> attorney, killed his family in April. 
Records show Parente's wife was bludgeoned with a lamp, 11-year-old Catherine was strangled and 19-year-old Stephanie was beaten and strangled. An autopsy report said Stephanie had severe hand, elbow and wrist bruising, suggesting the teen may have put up a struggle before she was killed. 
Police have said Parente first killed his wife, then their younger daughter, and later the older one. 
His own body showed signs of hesitation marks. 
To kill himself, he used a knife he bought at a Crate &amp; Barrel store across the street from the Sheraton <a href="/topics/Baltimore">Baltimore</a> North Hotel where the family was staying. The hotel did not return repeated calls for comment, and a Baltimore County police spokesman declined to comment on the report. 
Records show the family's last meal on April 19 included coffee, orange juice, crab bites, grits and chocolate chip cake at Baltimore's Miss Shirley's Café. In-room movies at the hotel were ordered. 
Later that day, police files concluded, Parente would murder his family and himself, and the newlyweds' tip would be called to the front desk reporting what they heard at about 3:15 p.m. 
Only the next afternoon, on April 20, when the occupants in Room 1029 failed to check out and no one answered repeated knocks, did a hotel manager break into the room and make a discovery: the body of the man, William Parente, 59, lifeless on the floor outside the bathroom. When police entered, the shades were shut and the lights were out, except for the bathroom, outside of which Parente was on his back. Dead on the bed were his wife, Betty, 58, and their daughters. 
"All of them were lying on their backs and the comforter was pulled up to their chins," an investigator wrote. 
With Michael Amon

LIPARE15

New details emerge of scene of LI family's murder-suicide

The deaths of a <a href="/topics/Garden_City%2C_NY">Garden City</a> family in a <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a> hotel room have ignited a protracted struggle almost a year later over the $5 million life insurance fund of its patriarch, William Parente, a battle that may turn on an unusual posthumous trial to prove that he killed them and himself. 
"We're going to, in essence, have to do the final step for the police," said Steve Cohn, a <a href="/topics/Carle_Place%2C_NY">Carle Place</a> attorney for one of Betty Parente's relatives and her estate. 
PHOTOS: <a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/parente-family-tragedy-1.1219707">Parente family murders-suicide</a> 
MORE PHOTOS: <a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/crime/parente-family-album-1.1219865">Parente family album</a> 
The trial is only one possible element in a sprawling financial dispute pitting the heirs of Parente and his wife, Betty, against each other and also against friends, colleagues and clients of Parente, a <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> tax and estate attorney who told others he ran a commercial bridge loan investment business on the side. 
His investors say they lost at least $12 million and perhaps as much as $35 million. In court papers, some now accuse Parente of running a Ponzi scheme, paying returns of 12 to 15 percent by shuffling money among clients instead of investing the funds. 
Parente "perpetrated a fraud," one investor, Dr. Marie-Jeanne Castadot, a <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> gynecologist, said in a signed affidavit. An FBI spokesman said agents were investigating. 
Some friends and colleagues say they are skeptical of the fraud allegations, and a court-appointed administrator for his estate has filed papers in <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> disputing Parente's culpability in the deaths. 
Baltimore County police found the Parente family dead in a Towson, Md., hotel on April 20, 2009. Betty, 58, was bludgeoned with a lamp and asphyxiated. In the bed next to her were the bodies of the couple's youngest daughter, Catherine, 11, who was asphyxiated, and Stephanie, 19, a sophomore at nearby Loyola College, who was beaten and asphyxiated, according to police. William was found dead on his back on the floor. A Baltimore County Police Department probe concluded William Parente killed his family, then fatally stabbed himself in the neck. 
Betty's cousin, Joseph Mazzarella, a <a href="/topics/North_Bellmore%2C_NY">North Bellmore</a> funeral director and administrator of Betty's and the girls' estates, said Betty's only surviving heirs, two nieces, daughters of her late sister, deserve some of the life insurance. He said his attorneys offered a group of investors a settlement giving them "10 cents on the dollar," which they rejected. 
"These investors, they're greedy, greedy people," Mazzarella said. 
&nbsp; 
Multiple courts involved 
The dispute is playing out in multiple <a href="/topics/Long_Island%2C_NY">Long Island</a> courts. 
In <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> Surrogate's Court, lawyers are debating a grim question: If Betty died before William, can her survivors lay claim to money from her husband's life insurance policy? 
The answer is maybe, estate attorneys said, but only if a court finds that William Parente murdered his family. Baltimore County police records - released to Newsday recently through a Maryland Public Information Act request - present evidence of his guilt but fall short of the guilty plea or jury verdict that a judge could use to prevent William Parente's own heirs from getting the money. 
The unusual circumstances require a hearing, a posthumous trial of sorts that <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> Surrogate Judge John Riordan has ordered but not scheduled. 
It could also take place in <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> State Supreme Court, where Betty and the children's estates, through Mazzarella, are suing William's estate for wrongful death. 
William Parente's guilt in the deaths and Betty's family's claim to the life insurance policy will be challenged in court by Eric Milgrim, the <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> public administrator. He oversees William's estate because all his surviving relatives - an elderly uncle and aunt and seven cousins - declined to be involved, though they could still inherit part of the life insurance. 
Milgrim has argued in court papers that Parente could have been insane or under extreme duress before the killings and therefore not culpable. 
The hearing could be avoided if the parties settle their dispute outside of court. 
Milgrim and his attorney, Mark Brosnan of <a href="/topics/Garden_City%2C_NY">Garden City</a>, declined to comment. 
Whatever estate ends up in control of the insurance policy will have to contend with claims from dozens of angry friends, clients and colleagues of William Parente who invested money with him. 
At least six, including Castadot, who say their losses total $4.4 million, have filed court claims. More claims are expected Tuesday, a deadline set by Milgrim. 
&nbsp; 
High-interest loans 
Believing they were funding high-interest emergency loans to construction projects, Parente's investors gave him at least $12 million and up to $35 million over a nearly 20-year period, according to interviews, police records and court documents. 
Among the biggest losers was <a href="/topics/Garden_City%2C_NY">Garden City</a> dentist Anthony Salierno, who first tipped off police to the possibility of a Ponzi scheme, a day after the bodies were found, according to Baltimore County police records. In court records, Salierno said he and his wife, Kathleen, gave Parente $950,000 of their savings and $1 million of a retirement fund. 
"[Salierno] told detectives that his life was over," a police report says. Salierno declined to comment. 
Baltimore County police have said they deferred to the FBI about Parente's finances. 
The documents indicate that Parente appeared under pressure in the days leading up to the killings. On April 14, he told his lifelong friend Dorothy Schimel that someone had threatened his life. 
"He did not look good," Schimel, 84, of <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a>, said, according to a police report. "He got mixed up with the wrong people." 
Authorities have yet to find business associates of Parente, said a law enforcement official familiar with the probe. Asked if investigators had looked into who "the wrong people" might be, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they had: "There's a possibility that no such people exist." 
The ongoing court saga makes a public spectacle of the lives and finances of a family that was, in the words of Stephanie Parente's friends, Stephanie Nguyen and Julieanne Malley, "status-oriented" and "very private." 
But court records show the Parentes' status markers were built on shaky foundations. 
They had less than $5,000 in the bank. Their $1 million <a href="/topics/Garden_City%2C_NY">Garden City</a> home had an outstanding mortgage of $600,000. A <a href="/topics/Westhampton%2C_NY">Westhampton</a> condo appraised at $250,000 has two mortgages for $500,000 and now is in foreclosure, court records show. 
The creditors calling on the Parente estates aren't just angry investors. According to court records, <a href="/topics/HSBC">HSBC</a> wants $21,850 and Citibank wants $16,396 for undisclosed debts. William Parente still owes $11,000 for his <a href="/topics/Mercedes-Benz">Mercedes-Benz</a>. 
William Parente - a 59-year-old estate planning lawyer friends described as conspicuously conscientious - had not prepared a will, according to court records. Neither had Betty. 
It has family members scratching their heads. "How could it be a Ponzi scheme? There's no money in the bank accounts," asked Mazzarella, adding that it complicates helping Parente's investors. "They can't get nothing because we got nothing." 
With Matthew Chayes 
&nbsp; 
How it works 
<a href="/topics/Garden_City%2C_NY">Garden City</a> attorney William Parente set up a $4.9 million irrevocable life insurance trust - a legal entity meant to avoid estate taxes - on Jan. 24, 2007, more than two years before his and his family's death. 
Typically, insurance policies don't pay out if the policyholder commits suicide within a year of taking out the policy. Parente died more than two years after he got the insurance. 
The insurance company last year paid the benefits to an account controlled by Parente's designated trustee, Leonard Aloi. 
He was then ordered by a judge to set it aside in a separate bank account, according to Nassau Surrogate's Court records. 
Because Parente's wife, Betty, a beneficiary of the life insurance, appears to have died before him, her heirs must prove in court that she was murdered by her husband. Normally, a beneficiary of a life insurance policy must survive the deceased, if only for a few moments, for the payout to pass to that person's heirs. 
But lawyers for William Parente's estate say in court papers that they will dispute Parente's guilt, arguing he may have been legally insane, under extreme duress or emotionally disturbed. If a judge finds Parente culpable, Betty's heirs would probably inherit the money. Whatever the ruling is, investors who say Parente bilked them of millions could make legal claims, tying up the insurance payout for years more in court.

LIPONZ15

Fight over $5M insurance fund in Parente murders-suicide

0KXLIRTC.JPG

Sometimes, while watching an <a href="/topics/New_York_Islanders">Islanders</a> game on television, I see one of those "Island of Surprises" commercials by the <a href="/topics/Long_Island">Long Island</a> Convention and Visitors Bureau. The commercial strings together images of white-looking couples -- all apparently heterosexual, some with kids, some without -- engaged in frankly unsurprising tourist activities: the beach, a museum, a vineyard. 
As someone who grew up in <a href="/topics/Syosset%2C_NY">Syosset</a>, and who recently moved back to the area after nearly 20 years, I cringe a little every time this commercial comes on. Here is the <a href="/topics/Long_Island%2C_NY">Long Island</a> stereotype in all its unabashed glory: a place of comfort, uniformity, predictability. 
When I returned to <a href="/topics/Long_Island%2C_NY">Long Island</a>, I knew I would have to confront my own ambivalent feelings about a place I often thought of in the same broad, bland way it appears in its own commercial. And my first year back has in many ways only left me more confused. For even though I spend my days working with students who are interesting, diverse and perpetually surprising, the stubborn myth of <a href="/topics/Long_Island%2C_NY">Long Island</a> as a distinctly unremarkable, one-size-fits-all community somehow lives on. 
I got to confront the question of what kind of community Long Island really is somewhat unexpectedly last month through the vehicle of <a href="/topics/Doris_Kearns_Goodwin">Doris Kearns Goodwin</a>'s "Wait Till Next Year," the historian's memoir of growing up in <a href="/topics/Rockville_Centre">Rockville Centre</a> in the 1950s and rooting for her beloved <a href="/topics/Brooklyn">Brooklyn</a> Dodgers. 
I was leading discussion groups as part of "Long Island Reads," the library system's project in which readers across the Island all study the same book for a month. <a href="/topics/Doris_Kearns_Goodwin">Goodwin</a>'s story is very much about the dream of suburban "normality" that has defined our Island for more than half a century. 
In describing her family's move from <a href="/topics/Brooklyn_Bridge%2C_NY">Brooklyn</a> to a neighborhood she saw as harmonious and safe, she is familiar and comforting. And early on in our conversations, readers were eager to reminisce about the glory days of Long Island -- their blocks, and the butchers and barbers who knew their families by name. 
But then something surprising happened: With only the slightest nudge from me, these discussions quickly turned to the darker side of suburban life -- secrets, anxieties, tensions, hostilities. Trying to get the groups to think more critically about <a href="/topics/Doris_Kearns_Goodwin">Goodwin</a>'s description of her white, straight, soundly middle-class block ("our common land -- our playground, our park, our community"), I asked them to think about the price of such an appearance of perfect consensus. This was all it took for the whole house of cards to come down. 
At the <a href="/topics/Farmingdale%2C_NY">Farmingdale</a> library, one reader who grew up near <a href="/topics/Doris_Kearns_Goodwin">Goodwin</a> in the 1950s described Goodwin's ideal of uniformity as a kind of "tribalism" that excluded the "freaks." He remembered a bicycle-riding black man whom the town's white children called "Sardines" (without really knowing why). As a child, he reluctantly stopped riding his bike because he feared being ostracized like that man. After describing the stigma that his parents' divorce brought upon his family, he concluded, "I would never want to go back to those days." 
Similar tales popped up in <a href="/topics/North_Merrick%2C_NY">North Merrick</a> and Port Washington. A Merrick woman who grew up on Long Island during the same era recognized Goodwin's description of the homes on her block "clustered so close to one another that they functioned almost as a single home." Indeed, the woman told us, "this is exactly how my block saw itself." That is, she clarified, until two couples on the block got divorced and the ex-husbands moved away together, as lovers. 
The last of my library sessions took place on a recent Friday afternoon. As we sat around a table, the Parente family from <a href="/topics/Garden_City">Garden City</a> had already checked in to their <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a> hotel. By the end of the weekend we would have the most recent in a seemingly endless string of graphic reminders that Long Island has never been as simple as we might pretend it is. In this latest tragedy we would confront a quintessential Long Island nightmare: the pressure of keeping troubles secret, the fragile belief that our neighbors are just like us. 
We already knew about the diversity and volatile social tensions of 21st-century Long Island. The 2006 <a href="/topics/Miller_Place%2C_NY">Miller Place</a> tragedy -- a racially charged shooting of a white teen by a black man -- highlighted the profoundly segregated nature of our communities, while last year's murder of <a href="/topics/Marcelo_Lucero">Marcelo Lucero</a> brought to light horrifying stories about violent gangs of white Long Island adolescents seeking out immigrant victims for attack. 
Like Goodwin, I grew up on a Long Island that I imagined as a place of safety and uniformity, defined against the dangerous and disorienting chaos of a city that both beckoned and loomed. But after spending a few recent hours with a diverse, and rather surprising collection of Long Islanders who began to question that view in themselves, I am left asking why we continue to sell ourselves as precisely what we are not: all the same. 
<a href="/topics/Peter_West">Peter West</a> is assistant professor of English at <a href="/topics/Adelphi_University">Adelphi University</a>.

Opinion

ny-opwes0503

A reality check for the old ideal of exclusion in the suburbs

FBI agents raided the Manhattan office of William Parente Wednesday as part of a probe into his investment business, which apparently crumbled just before the tax attorney killed himself and his <a href="/topics/Garden_City">Garden City</a> family April 19. 
About 40 boxes of files and a computer hard drive were removed by FBI agents during a three-hour search of the office at 575 Lexington Ave., said James Margolin, a spokesman for the FBI's Manhattan field office. 
A person familiar with the investigation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the FBI had spoken to at least a dozen investors who had given Parente, 59, about $20 million over the past 20 years. Investors have said Parente used the money to make high-interest commercial bridge loans. 
One investor, who spoke on condition of anonymity Wednesday, said Parente had been vague about where the money was being invested. 
"No one questioned him, because everyone knew him," the investor said. "I don't understand where the money could have gone." 
When investors asked for their money back after the <a href="/topics/Bernard_Madoff">Bernard Madoff</a> scam was revealed in December, Parente at first balked and then later issued checks that bounced just after, police say, he killed his family and himself. 
Baltimore County police said Parente beat and asphyxiated his wife, Betty, 58, and two daughters, Catherine 11, and Stephanie, 19, before killing himself with a knife early the next morning. 
Betty Parente and her children were buried Tuesday at St. Charles Cemetery in Farmingdale. William Parente's body will be cremated, family members said. 
Authorities have not announced a motive for the killings, and federal authorities have yet to determine whether there was financial misconduct.

Crime

ny-lipare3012711457apr29

FBI raids William Parente's Manhattan office

911: Baltimore County 911. 
Caller: Yes ma'am, um, I'm calling from the Sheraton Baltimore North. 
911: Yes, sir. 
Caller: We have a dead body in one of our rooms, ma'am. 
911: OK, I can help you, let me take some information so we can go ahead and get some help out there.What's the address? 
Caller: The address is 903 Dulaney Valley Road. 
911: The Sheraton hotel, correct? 
Caller: That's correct. 
911: OK, 903 Dulaney Valley Road, off of Fairmount Avenue? 
Caller: That's correct. 
911: What room number? 
Caller: 1029 
911: And your name sir? 
Caller: My name is (redacted). 
911: And you work there, sir? 
Caller: Yes ma'am, I do. 
911: And the phone number you're calling us from? 
Caller: I'm calling from my cell phone (redacted) 
911: Ok, and do you know if it's a male or a female? 
Caller: It's a male. 
911: And, but they're definitely beyond help? 
Caller: Um yes, ma'am. 
911: Any idea how this might have happened? 
Caller: I don't know, I'm not going further into the room than what I just saw on the floor in the entrance. 
911: OK, I want to let you know that we have already sent a call for police, fire and ambulance, should be on the way up there. If you do find any more information and we're not out, just give us a call back in. If you don't want to go in the room, definitely don't. You don't have to, sir. They'll be there as soon as they can to help you. 
Caller: Thank you, ma'am. 
911: All right, bye bye.

ny-nycall0428

Transcript of 911 call in Parente case

The man who answered the phone in room 1029 at the Sheraton <a href="/topics/Baltimore">Baltimore</a> North didn't sound like William Parente. He was short and dismissive and told Julieanne Malley that Stephanie Parente wasn't returning to their suite at Loyola College in <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a> that night. 
"Steph is with her family tonight," he said, according to John Malley, Julieanne's father. "Good night." 
It was 11:50 p.m. Stephanie Parente, 19, a sophomore from <a href="/topics/Garden_City">Garden City</a>, was already dead, killed by her own father hours earlier, after he murdered her mother Betty, 58, and sister Catherine, 11, lining up the three bodies on a king-size bed at the hotel April 19, police said. 
William Parente had already walked across the street to the Towson Town Center mall and purchased a set of knives at Crate &amp; Barrel at 5:24 p.m., Baltimore County police have said. Some time after answering the phone, Parente, a 59-year-old attorney and investment manager whose financial business is under federal and state investigation, cut himself, bleeding to death in the hotel's bathroom, police said. 
Malley, 19, and her suitemates - best friends who called themselves "The Mates" - were worried that night, worried because their friend "Little Steph" had a chemistry test the next day and her book lay open on her desk. They were so worried that the next day one of them called Parente's work phone to hear his voice mail, to make sure that the man who answered the phone was in fact William Parente, said John Malley of Caldwell, N.J. 
Malley told his daughter not to worry, that if one of her roommates had called that late at night, he might have reacted the same way. 
"She simply said, 'Dad, you don't get it. Mr. Parente isn't like that,' " he said. 
Just before 3 p.m., a hotel manager opened the room door after the Parente family didn't check out the next morning. 
"We have a dead body in one of our rooms, ma'am," said a calm male voice on a 911 recording. 
"Any idea how this might have happened?" asked the operator. 
"I don't know, I'm not going further into the room than what I just saw on the floor in the entrance," he said. 
Police have not identified the objects that may have been used to kill the family. All three victims had been beaten and asphyxiated. 
Monday Cpl. Michael Hill, Baltimore County police spokesman, said no further information would be released. 
The Parentes arrived in Baltimore April 15 on a surprise visit to Stephanie, friends have said. The family was well-known among her suitemates and members of the crew team, to which she belonged in her freshman year. 
"They would always come to the regattas," said Abigail Gotsch, of <a href="/topics/Bethlehem">Bethlehem</a>, Pa. "It was weird for a family to be at every single regatta . . . They just wanted to see their daughter." 
April 18, Stephanie had breakfast with her family at a popular restaurant and was seen at a lacrosse game in the afternoon. She met them for breakfast the next day and returned to her dorm suite. 
At 3 p.m. she was taking a nap, said Victoria Nguyen, mother of her roommate, Stephanie Nguyen. Some time after that, she left to travel five miles north to the hotel in Towson where her family was staying.

ny-lidead2812702633apr27

College roommate: Parente's dad sounded odd on phone

The body of William Parente, the <a href="/topics/Garden_City">Garden City</a> lawyer who police said killed his wife and two daughters six days ago in a <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a> hotel room, is to be cremated separately, without a funeral, a family member said Friday. 
A special Mass for William Parente's wife, Betty, 58, and their daughters, Catherine, 11, and Stephanie, 19, is to be offered Saturday at the family's longtime church in Garden City, where Betty recently became a Eucharistic minister. Their funeral will be next week. 
William Parente, 59, whose work as a broker of short-term commercial loans is under scrutiny by state and federal officials, beat and asphyxiated Betty and Catherine, a sixth-grader at Garden City Middle School, in a hotel room Sunday, police said. 
He waited several hours with their bodies before Stephanie came to the room, where she was also killed. Parente later committed suicide, Baltimore County police said. Their bodies were discovered Monday. 
The Parentes drove together April 15 to visit Stephanie, a sophomore and speech-language pathology major at Loyola College in <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a>. 
Relatives on both sides of the Parente family said viewings and the funeral for the mother and daughters will not include William Parente, whom friends and colleagues have described as a loving father. 
William Parente's body is being held at Park Funeral Chapels in <a href="/topics/Garden_City_Park%2C_NY">Garden City Park</a> and his family will be making its own arrangements, said a funeral home spokesman. 
"We're going to spread the ashes somewhere," the cousin said. Another Parente family member said they offered to donate burial plots for Betty and the children. 
Joseph Mazzarella of <a href="/topics/Massapequa%2C_NY">Massapequa</a>, a funeral parlor director and a cousin of Betty Parente, is making arrangements for Betty's and the girls' burial. When asked about the offer from William Parente's family, he answered: "No. I'm not putting them in their plot. I'm buying my own plot." 
Viewings for Betty Parente and the children are Monday from 2 to 4 p.m. and from 7 to 9 p.m. at Park Funeral Chapels in <a href="/topics/Garden_City_Park">Garden City Park</a>. Their funeral Mass is Tuesday at 10 a.m. at St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church in Garden City. 
They will be buried at St. Charles Cemetery in <a href="/topics/Farmingdale%2C_NY">Farmingdale</a>. 
Pervaiz Shallwani and staff writer Michael Amon contributed to this story.

News

LIDEAD25

Mass for wife, daughters

A brightly colored greeting card sits on a bookshelf in Garden City Middle School Principal Peter Osroff's office. When Osroff opens the card, congratulating the school on an honor received last fall, he hears Betty Parente's voice. 
"Congratulations on the Blue Ribbon award!" she says cheerily, with a hint of her <a href="/topics/Brooklyn">Brooklyn</a> accent. Inside the card, decorated with white stars, Parente wrote, "Catherine is loving middle school. Sixth grade according to her is very cool." 
In an interview at the school Friday, Osroff said the card exemplified Parente's character. "She made everybody feel special," he said. "Her children truly reflected her." 
Parente, 58, and her daughters Stephanie, 19, and Catherine, 11, were killed Sunday by Parente's husband and the girls' father, William, who then committed suicide, according to police. 
The deaths have left the middle school students grieving, Osroff said. 
"They're doing as well as we could hope for under the circumstances," he said. "There's a real sense of sadness. ... The word tragedy doesn't even do justice." 
On Wednesday, Osroff said, nearly every sixth-grade student wore blue, Catherine's favorite color. The school had a moment of silence Thursday. 
And as students began bringing bouquets of red roses and daisies to school, a space in the courtyard near a pond with a waterfall was devoted to a memorial. "It's been a place for quiet reflection," Osroff said. 
Students drew sad faces streaming with tears. One drawing represented the Coach handbag Catherine carried. A student wrote, "You were always happy. That brightened up the whole class." Another drew a little girl with angel wings. A blue teddy bear sat on the ground. 
Osroff, who remembered Catherine as always ready with a greeting and a smile, said the memorial's contents would eventually be offered to Parentes' relatives. School officials are discussing memorials, such as a courtyard bench, a tree and a plaque, for Catherine, who loved sports and performed in her elementary school play, Osroff said. 
As they help students deal with their emotions, the school faculty has pulled together, Osroff said, with teachers covering each other's classes when they become too grief stricken. 
Osroff said he spoke to Stephanie Parente, a sophomore majoring in speech pathology at Loyola College in <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a>, just a few weeks ago. She had asked&nbsp;and was planning to visit the middle school, perhaps in the summer, to observe the speech therapists there, he said. 
As for William Parente, Osroff said he met him just once or twice. "I can't even imagine," he said, trailing off. "I can't even speak about it." 
THE FUNERALS 
Visitation for the Parentes - from far left, Stephanie, Catherine and Betty - will be Monday from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. at Park Funeral Chapels, <a href="/topics/Jericho2">Jericho</a> Turnpike, Garden City Park. 
The funeral will be Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. at St. Joseph's Church on Franklin Avenue in Garden City. Burial will be at St. Charles Cemetery in Pinelawn.

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Principal: 'A real sense of sadness'

After a Garden City attorney and investment manager now accused of shady dealings killed his wife and daughters in a <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a> hotel room, he walked across the street to a home decorating store and bought the knife he used to commit suicide, officials said Friday. 
Interviews with store staff and a receipt found in the Parente family's 10th-floor hotel room revealed that William Parente, 59, bought a set of knives at a Crate &amp; Barrel Sunday afternoon in Towson, a <a href="/topics/Baltimore">Baltimore</a> suburb, police said. 
The store is across from the Sheraton hotel where the body of Betty Parente, 58, William Parente's wife of more than three decades, and their daughters, Catherine, 11, and Stephanie, 19, were found Monday. 
All three had been beaten and asphyxiated. Evidence and the arrangement of the bodies - side by side on a king-size bed - showed Parente had placed them that way, police said. 
Police believe Parente, whose investment business is under federal and state investigation, killed Betty and Catherine after a family breakfast Sunday morning. He then waited in the room for several hours for Stephanie to arrive. 
Police believe she was killed in the same manner upon entering the room. The receipt indicated that a set of knives was bought at 5:24 p.m. "We think they were all dead by that point," said Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey. 
Early Monday, Parente cut himself with one of the knives. He bled to death on the bathroom floor, police said. 
The Parentes arrived in <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a> April 15 on a surprise visit to Stephanie, a sophomore at Loyola College in <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a>. 
Police said previously that a card-access key was used to enter the room about 4 p.m. Sunday. It was unclear who used the key card, police said. 
"We don't know and we may never know the exact sequence of events in those last few hours," Toohey said. 
Police removed a knife and several hotel-owned objects from the room. 
Forensic tests on them are expected to take several weeks.

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After slayings, he bought weapon

"For Catherine!" 
The cry rang out in the bright spring sunshine Saturday on the fields behind the Stewart School in <a href="/topics/Garden_City">Garden City</a>. 
There, more than a dozen middle-school girls on the <a href="/topics/Iceland">Iceland</a> Blue Ice team played a special soccer game dedicated to their lost friend and teammate, Catherine Parente. 
For the past year, Catherine, 11, a sixth-grader at Garden City Middle School, had played fullback and forward on the team, said coach Paul Muscarella. 
"The team felt very strongly that Catherine would have wanted us to play through our pain and play this game in her memory. She was a great kid who will continue to inspire us all forever," Muscarella said. 
Like much of the Garden City community, the team was devastated to learn of Catherine's death, Muscarella said. 
Police said her father, William Parente, 59, killed Catherine, sister Stephanie, 19, and their mother, Betty, 58, in a <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a> hotel room April 19. The family was on a trip to see Stephanie, a student at Loyola College in <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a>. 
William Parente, a tax attorney, then killed himself with a knife, police said. 
The Parentes had seemed like the other moms and dads who watched games, players' parents said. When Catherine hurt her foot in the season's first game, William Parente helped carry her off the field, said coach Steve Schort. 
In particular, Betty Parente had been a friendly part of the soccer community, said one mother at the game. 
"We would always talk about how lucky we were to have our children," said Stephanie Wise of Garden City. "She was just a shining star among people." 
Along with the special blue T-shirts emblazoned with Catherine's team number, 40, the team wore pink ribbons tied around their ponytails in honor of Betty Parente. 
The Iceland team won 2-0 against the Garden City <a href="/topics/Brazil">Brazil</a> team, which had many players who also were friends with Catherine, Muscarella said. 
Before the game, several players also attended a special Mass at the Parentes' church, St. Joseph Church in Garden City. 
As the hundreds of parishioners began singing the first notes of "Amazing Grace" at the beginning of the Mass, some Parente relatives seated in the front pews began to cry. 
"The friendship and prayers and love of this parish are with you," the Rev. Joseph Schlafer said, gazing at the tearful family members. 
The relatives declined to comment after the service. 
Mourning for three of the Parentes will continue Monday with a closed-coffin visitation for Betty, Catherine and Stephanie. It will be at Park Funeral Chapels in <a href="/topics/Garden_City_Park">Garden City Park</a> from 2 to 4 p.m. and from 7 to 9 p.m. A funeral Mass for the three will be 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at St. Joseph's, with burial in St. Charles Cemetery in <a href="/topics/East_Farmingdale">East Farmingdale</a>. 
There will be separate arrangements for William Parente, according to his family.

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Catherine Parente's teammates play through their pain

Portrait photographer Joanne Schulter hasn't been able to control her tears since she found out her longtime subjects had died. 
Media outlets across the world have featured a November 2008 photo she took that shows two sisters smiling in happier times dressed for <a href="/topics/Christmas">Christmas</a> - a time before the sisters were found dead last week along with their mother and father in a Towson, Md., hotel room. Police say the father killed the three and then committed suicide. 
"I remember actually clicking that picture," she said. 
Year after year for nearly 18 years, always on the day after <a href="/topics/Thanksgiving">Thanksgiving</a>, William and Betty Parente would travel to the Portraits by Joanne shop in Dyker Heights, <a href="/topics/Brooklyn">Brooklyn</a>, where Betty Parente would fuss over the tiniest details to make sure the pictures looked just so. She deliberated over her beloved daughters' outfits. She sprayed and combed and styled. 
"I don't know how we're going to work the day after <a href="/topics/Thanksgiving">Thanksgiving</a> this year," Schulter said. 
And even when the Parentes moved to <a href="/topics/Garden_City">Garden City</a> from <a href="/topics/Brooklyn_Bridge%2C_NY">Brooklyn</a> more than 12 years ago, the family would make an annual trip to the studio for portraits of their girls, Catherine, 11, and Stephanie, 19. Schulter, 42, and her sister, Susan DeLuca, 44, who helps run the shop, considered them like family. 
More than a thousand of their portraits show the girls growing up. Pigtails. Braces. Earrings. The shop is now working frantically to print enlargements for this week's funeral and wake. 
DeLuca said William Parente never showed any sign that anything was amiss. 
"Never, never, never, never, never, no," she said. 
During one of the sessions a few years ago, Parente - a real estate attorney - offered to help with the studio's legal troubles. 
Schulter never followed up. 
"I didn't want to bother him," she said. "I just felt like he was too busy."

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Picture of sadness: Parente family photographer

The body of William Parente, the <a href="/topics/Garden_City">Garden City</a> lawyer who police said killed his wife and two daughters six days ago in a <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a> hotel room, is to be cremated separately, without a funeral, a family member said Friday. 
A special Mass for William Parente's wife, Betty, 58, and their daughters, Catherine, 11, and Stephanie, 19, is to be offered Saturday at the family's longtime church in Garden City, where Betty recently became a Eucharistic minister. Their funeral will be next week. 
William Parente, 59, whose work as a broker of short-term commercial loans is under scrutiny by state and federal officials, beat and asphyxiated Betty and Catherine, a sixth-grader at Garden City Middle School, in a hotel room Sunday, police said. 
He waited several hours with their bodies before Stephanie came to the room, where she was also killed. Parente later committed suicide, Baltimore County police said. Their bodies were discovered Monday. 
The Parentes drove together April 15 to visit Stephanie, a sophomore and speech-language pathology major at Loyola College in <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a>. 
Relatives on both sides of the Parente family said viewings and the funeral for the mother and daughters will not include William Parente, whom friends and colleagues have described as a loving father. 
William Parente's body is being held at Park Funeral Chapels in <a href="/topics/Garden_City_Park">Garden City Park</a> and his family will be making its own arrangements, said a funeral home spokesman. 
"We're going to spread the ashes somewhere," the cousin said. Another Parente family member said they offered to donate burial plots for Betty and the children. 
Joseph Mazzarella of <a href="/topics/Massapequa%2C_NY">Massapequa</a>, a funeral parlor director and a cousin of Betty Parente, is making arrangements for Betty's and the girls' burial. When asked about the offer from William Parente's family, he answered: "No. I'm not putting them in their plot. I'm buying my own plot." 
Viewings for Betty Parente and the children are Monday from 2 to 4 p.m. and from 7 to 9 p.m. at Park Funeral Chapels in Garden City Park. Their funeral Mass is Tuesday at 10 a.m. at St. Joseph <a href="/topics/Roman_Catholic_Church">Roman Catholic Church</a> in Garden City. They will be buried at St. Charles Cemetery in <a href="/topics/Farmingdale%2C_NY">Farmingdale</a>. 
Pervaiz Shallwani and staff writer Michael Amon contributed to this story.

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Services for William Parente will be separate

Loved ones of the Parentes walked into an empty <a href="/topics/Garden_City">Garden City</a> home yesterday to begin arrangements for a funeral next week for three members of the family. 
Among the relatives' tasks: choosing dresses for Catherine Parente, 11, and her big sister, Stephanie, 19, to be buried in. 
"The casket's going to be closed," said Joseph Mazzarella of <a href="/topics/Massapequa%2C_NY">Massapequa</a>, a cousin of the girls' mother, Betty Parente, who is to be laid to rest with her two children. 
Services will be Tuesday at the family's Catholic church. 
William Parente, 59, a <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> attorney with a side business as a broker of short-term commercial loans, fatally beat and asphyxiated his wife, Betty, 58, and daughter Catherine, a sixth-grader at Garden City Middle School, in a <a href="/topics/Baltimore">Baltimore</a>-area hotel room Sunday, police said. He waited several hours with their bodies before his daughter Stephanie came to the room, where she was also killed. Parente cut himself and bled to death, Baltimore County police said. 
Their bodies were not found until Monday. 
The family was visiting Stephanie, a sophomore at Loyola College in <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a>. Their visit was a surprise, Stephanie's roommate said yesterday. For the third day, scores of people came to the Parentes' home on First Street, where the doorstep was cluttered with melted candles and mementos. 
Kathleen Amodeo of Massapequa, another cousin of Betty Parente's, said they had been negotiating with Garden City police to get access to the house to find Social Security numbers, which were needed for death certificates. 
Mazzarella, a <a href="/topics/North_Bellmore%2C_NY">North Bellmore</a> funeral parlor director, is to receive their remains. 
The family was struggling to understand why Parente killed his family, Amodeo said. At recent get-togethers, the Parentes were excited about Stephanie's plans to study abroad; Parente gave no hint of financial problems. 
Betty Parente "doted on him and the children," she said. 
A relative of William Parente declined to speak to a reporter yesterday. 
Eryn Helfant, 28, of <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a>, also visited the house yesterday. She said since she was a baby, Helfant and her family spent summers with the Parentes in the Hamptons, where each family owned a condo. From <a href="/topics/Memorial_Day">Memorial Day</a> to Labor Day, they would barbecue and play on the beach. "It's hard now to look forward to the summer knowing people are going to be missing," she said. 
While the motive for the homicides may never be fully known - no suicide note has been found - allegations that William Parente had financial troubles surfaced just after his death. 
Forensic tests were being conducted on several objects from the Sheraton hotel room where the family died to see if a murder weapon was among them. The tests could take weeks or longer to complete, police said. 
In a letter to Loyola parents posted on the school Web site, Loyola president the Rev. Brian F. Linnane encouraged students to seek support from counselors. The school will provide transportation for students who want to attend services on <a href="/topics/Long_Island%2C_NY">Long Island</a>. 
Wake and funeral 
Visitation for the Parente family will be Monday from 2 to 4 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. at Park Funeral Chapels on Jericho Turnpike in <a href="/topics/Garden_City_Park%2C_NY">Garden City Park</a>. 
The funeral will be Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. at St. Joseph's Church on Franklin Avenue in Garden City. Burial will be at St. Charles Cemetery in Pinelawn.

LIDEAD24

Kin prepare for funeral

Hours after finding victims of a brutal murder-suicide in a suburban <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a> hotel room, a <a href="/topics/Baltimore">Baltimore</a> County police detective opened William Parente's cell phone and began dialing numbers. 
Police were looking for next of kin, but some contacted by the detective also volunteered a possible motive: "questionable financial dealings" by Parente, 59, of <a href="/topics/Garden_City">Garden City</a>, a tax and estate attorney who ran an investment business on the side, Baltimore County Police Cpl. Michael Hill said Thursday. 
Another law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Thursday that the detective reached "some people seeking their money back." 
Hill said: "These were not family members. These were clients, acquaintances or otherwise." 
Authorities say Parente beat and asphyxiated his wife, Betty, 58, and then his two daughters, Catherine, 11, and Stephanie, 19, on Sunday night while on a trip to <a href="/topics/Towson">Towson</a>, Md., to visit the older daughter at Loyola College in Maryland. Parente laid his dead family together on the king-size bed in a room at the Sheraton Hotel before cutting himself and bleeding to death on the bathroom floor, police said. 
Friday, the Baltimore Sun reported that sometime after checking into the hotel, Parente bought the knife he used to kill himself from a mall across the street. 
Baltimore County detectives found a Crate &amp; Barrel store receipt for the knife among Parente's belongings after his body was discovered Monday, Cpl. Michael Hill said Thursday, according to the Sun. 
Parente left no note and police have not announced a motive. But federal authorities have zeroed in recently on pressure Parente may have been under from investors in a discrete loan brokerage that he had run for the last 20 years. 
FBI agents may search the <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> attorney's Lexington Avenue office soon, the official said. 
Two associates of Parente, who spoke on condition of anonymity, estimated Thursday that friends and clients had invested at least $20 million with Parente. The money, they said, was for making bridge loans to construction projects and other commercial ventures. 
This week, checks to numerous investors that Parente issued began bouncing, the associates said. 
The law enforcement official said there appeared to be a relatively small circle of investors, though the number could grow as the probe goes on. 
FBI spokesman James Margolin said the precise worth of Parente's business remained unknown Thursday. He encouraged anyone who felt they had been victimized to call the FBI's <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> field office at 212-384-5000. 
The <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> State attorney general's office is also investigating a complaint from <a href="/topics/Bayside">Bayside</a> lawyer Bruce Montague, who said he invested nearly $450,000 with Parente. Montague has said he deposited two checks for $245,000 from Parente last week, only to have them bounce on Tuesday.

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Cops: Detectives quickly learned of Parente financial woes

BALTIMORE - They call themselves "The Mates." Danni and Lauren, Jules and Heather, Big Steph and Little Steph, or just "the little one." 
The six suitemates at Loyola College in <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a> created a family here, a place where they danced to <a href="/topics/Britney_Spears">Britney Spears</a> and watched "Jeopardy," played video games and laughed the night away. 
Stephanie Parente provided many of those laughs, a dynamic, 19-year-old sophomore from <a href="/topics/Garden_City">Garden City</a> who barely broke 5 feet and 100 pounds, and amused her friends with antics like enrolling in a wizardry class. 
"The six of us, we were always together," Julieanne Malley, 19, of Caldwell, N.J., said Thursday. 
Stephanie, sister Catherine, 11, and their mother, Betty, were killed by her father, William, in a Towson, Md., hotel room Sunday, police have said, wiping out one family and leaving another one member less. 
Now, the girls who live in Newman Towers East, are adjusting to a life without Little Steph. They haven't slept in their suite, haven't left each other's sides (except for Heather Draganescu, 20, who transferred to a school outside of <a href="/topics/Philadelphia">Philadelphia</a> last year but visited Loyola this week). 
Talking about Stephanie, the girls light up, even her memory making them laugh. "She didn't live a long life, but she definitely lived the life she wanted to live, especially these last two years of college," Malley said. 
"It makes us feel comfortable to know that she was basically living day to day like that," said Lauren Gallinari, 19, of Tuckahoe, N.Y. 
Stephanie was always immaculately dressed, the friends said. Even at breakfast, she would don designer flats. 
She was on the women's crew team last year and was the men's crew coxswain this year. She loved going out to eat, persuading her friends to take $10 cabs to <a href="/topics/Chipotle_Mexican_Grill%2C_Inc.">Chipotle Mexican Grill</a>. 
The Parente family checked into a hotel about five miles north of campus Wednesday. It was a surprise, the friends said. "They came for all the regular visits, but they didn't come to just come," said Stephanie Nguyen, 20, of Wingdale, N.Y. 
Stephanie spoke to her mother every day. She adored Catherine, who visited on Loyola's sibling day. Stephanie would do her hair. Sometimes they wore matching clothes. She took cell phone pictures of herself doing things like watching television and sent them to her. 
There were no indications of problems, the friends said. The family went to <a href="/topics/Florida">Florida</a> and the Hamptons. She got along with her father. 
"She loved her family," said Danielle Scorrano, 20, of Somers, N.Y. 
The suitemates saw Stephanie on Sunday before she had breakfast with her family. They saw her again when she returned to campus. Nguyen's mother, Victoria, has said Stephanie was taking a nap at 3 p.m. Sunday. 
The friends don't want to talk about what happened after that. 
Thursday was the first day they returned to class. Draganescu has returned to her school. 
This weekend is Loyolapalooza, an annual party before finals. The six went together last year. A black and white picture of them there sat atop the altar at the Mass Tuesday, where hundreds crammed a campus chapel. 
This year, the friends are hoping to wear T-shirts to Loyolapalooza in memory of Stephanie. There are also plans to raise money for a memorial. And they hope to make bracelets that they will always wear. 
They will stay in the suite for the rest of the year. "I think it would be worse to move than to stay," Nguyen said. "Our door is decorated. There's a whole big shrine of memories to Steph." 
Surrounded by pictures and notes, it reads "Remembering Stephanie."

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Stephanie Parente's suitemates remember 'Little Steph'

The mourners kept coming. They stood and sat, in pews, on chairs, in the balcony, on the ground, and eventually on the altar itself. 
Hundreds came, students and professors, parents and staff, taking up every last space in Alumni Memorial Chapel at Loyola College Tuesday night. 
They came to mourn one of their own, Stephanie Parente, a bubbly sophomore that everyone seemed to know or know of. 
They came to pray for her family, even the one responsible for her death. 
Parente, her parents and 11-year-old sister, Catherine, all of Garden City - were found dead in a hotel room at the Sheraton in Towson on Monday in what police are calling a murder-suicide. 
"For all the young souls that left this world too early, that they may live an everlasting life as guiding angels," said Stephanie Nguyen, Parente's roommate, reading a prayer at the Mass. 
"For Betty and William, the devoted parents of Catherine and Stephanie, that they may be eternally in peace...," read another roommate. 
And then a prayer for Stephanie, from a third roommate, that she be "peaceful and happy" with her family in heaven. 
Sobs broke in the chapel. Students clung to one another. A baby cried. 
The Rev. Brian Linnane, president of the college, presided over the Mass, expressing grief and confusion at the tragic events that brought them together. 
"Whatever we can say about the passing of Stephanie and her parents and her sister, she did not die alone or unloved," he said. 
"I have no doubt that the person who harmed her, loved her, despite a terrible thing that was done," he said. 
Students held hands, tears streaming down their faces, as they sang "Lord of All Hopelessness" and "You Are Mine." Parente's crew jacket and other mementos were brought to the altar. 
In his homily, Linnane confessed to also "feeling at sea." 
"It is quite legitimate. . .to feel shaken, to feel, 'What's it all about, if this could happen, what could it possibly mean?'" 
The answer, he said, lies in their faith. 
"Resurrection, if it is to be real, is to be experienced now," he said. 
"This is the task that our faith has prepared us for," he added. "To trust that sense of newness of life that I assure you will come."

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Hundreds mourn Stephanie Parente at her college

The Garden City mother and her two daughters died violently, one by one. In the hours that passed after the killings and before the father took his own life, he carefully laid their bodies side by side on a hotel bed. 
Rather than a sudden convulsion of violence, police believe William Parente, a <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> attorney with alleged financial troubles, who was upset over the death of his mother a year ago, spent hours in the room after he fatally beat and asphyxiated his wife, Betty. He then turned on Catherine, a sixth-grader with bangs and a love of sports. Later, his older daughter, Stephanie, known as "Little Steph" around her <a href="/topics/Baltimore">Baltimore</a> college campus, arrived at the hotel room. She met the same fate. 
"We do not believe . . . that she lived for any length of time after she entered the room," said Cpl. Michael Hill of the <a href="/topics/Baltimore">Baltimore</a> County police. 
Two days after the family was found dead, business people chatted on cell phones in the lobby of the <a href="/topics/Baltimore">Baltimore</a> Sheraton North hotel or watched a Rangers game in the bar. 
The 10th floor - where the family died - was empty and quiet. 
Wednesday, their sudden end continued to reverberate among those who knew them. 
Marlies Heitmann, of <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a>, who hired Parente as her corporate tax attorney more than a decade ago, said "his daughters were his life. Every time he spoke about them, he would light up." 
About five years ago, she said, "I happened to bump into him when his wife was diagnosed with <a href="/topics/Breast_Cancer">breast cancer</a>. He broke down into tears when he told me. . . . With him, it was all wife and kids, wife and kids." 
Police in Towson, a <a href="/topics/Baltimore">Baltimore</a> suburb, Wednesday described how Parente killed Betty, 58, Catherine, 11, and Stephanie, 19, then himself during a family trip to visit the older girl, a sophomore at Loyola College in <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a>. 
After a family breakfast Sunday, police said, Stephanie left the group. The others returned to their hotel room in the late morning. There, Parente struck Betty with a blunt object and cut off her air supply. An unknown amount of time passed before he killed Catherine, a sixth-grader at Garden City Middle School, in the same fashion. 
Stephanie returned to the hotel in the afternoon, Hill said, and called or texted her father from the lobby before going to the room. She was probably killed upon entering, police said. 
Close to midnight, Parente was in the room with the three bodies when he spoke briefly with a roommate of Stephanie's who had called, saying she was staying at the hotel. At some point, he arranged their bodies neatly on the king-size bed. He later cut himself with a knife and bled to death on the bathroom floor, police said. 
Detectives removed several hotel-owned objects from the room, but it was not clear yet which, if any, were murder weapons, police said. A card was used to access the room about 4 p.m.; there was no indication that William Parente could have left the room after then. Toxicology test results were not available Wednesday. 
The revelations about how the family died came as the FBI acknowledged that it has launched an investigation of William Parente's investment dealings. The probe began Wednesday after numerous investors complained to <a href="/topics/Baltimore">Baltimore</a> police, an FBI spokesman said. 
<a href="/topics/Bayside%2C_NY">Bayside</a> attorney Bruce Montague, 47, told Newsday on Tuesday that he has hundreds of thousands of dollars in investments that Parente managed. After repeated attempts to retrieve the money in recent months, two checks for $245,000 bounced Tuesday, he said.

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Police release details of Parente family's deaths

A makeshift memorial grew Wednesday at the Parente home on First Street in Garden City as the affluent community and relatives grappled with the grisly details of the family's demise. 
Somber as they pondered the murder-suicide that wiped out a family described by neighbors as well-liked and loving, parents outside Garden City Middle School said they tried to support their own children while struggling to explain the inexplicable. 
"In the beginning, there wasn't enough information to give to the children," said <a href="/topics/Carol_Kane">Carol Kane</a>, whose daughter played basketball with Catherine Parente, 11. "And now, maybe there's too much." 
From Garden City to <a href="/topics/Baltimore">Baltimore</a>, where the bodies of William Parente, 59, and Betty Parente, 58, and their daughters, Stephanie, 19, and Catherine, were found Monday afternoon, friends were speechless. The family's facade of stability and prosperity was shattered when William Parente killed his wife and daughters, then himself, according to police, and the FBI said it was investigating his financial dealings. 
- Click here to see the latest photos from the Parente family murder-suicide case 
"I can't even imagine what Betty felt as he came toward her," said Debbie Fusco-Gerek, of Garden City. "And then his children, to see this from Daddy. . . . Who knows what state of mind he was in?" Fusco-Gerek had to explain to her son, a sixth-grader, why fellow sixth-grader Catherine "was not coming back to school," she said. 
Betty Parente's cousin, Joe Mazzarella, of <a href="/topics/Massapequa%2C_NY">Massapequa</a>, said at the Parente home Wednesday he had been trying to get the family's Social Security numbers so he could make funeral arrangements. 
"We just want to get in so we can get them home," said Mazzarella, who owns a <a href="/topics/North_Bellmore%2C_NY">North Bellmore</a> funeral home. 
Betty Parente's second cousin, Kathleen Amodeo, of Massapequa, said before Garden City Police let them in, they were asked to show personal effects, such as photos and greeting cards, to prove they're related. 
In Baltimore, where Stephanie Parente was a sophomore at Loyola College in <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a>, her roommate of two years, Stephanie Nguyen, and other friends were too distraught to talk to reporters. 
"They're inconsolable," said Nguyen's mother, Victoria. 
Dozens of Catherine Parente's classmates also gathered Tuesday at St. Joseph's <a href="/topics/Roman_Catholic_Church">Roman Catholic Church</a> in Garden City, said the Rev. Joseph Schlafer. 
The assembly began with tears, he said, but as classmates shared their memories of Catherine, "these children were smiling and at times laughing." 
A flag flew at half-staff Wednesday outside the middle school, where grief counselors were on campus to aid students and faculty, said principal Peter Osroff. 
"Grief is the price of caring," he said, "and these are people we cared for."

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Mourners create memorial at Garden City family's home

PROBE BEGINS. The FBI has opened an investigation into William Parente's financial dealings after numerous complaints from investors to Baltimore County police. 
HOW THEY DIED. Baltimore County police disclose William Parente killed his wife and two daughters by "blunt force trauma and asphyxiation" at a Towson, Md., hotel before committing suicide. Police said he cut himself and bled to death in the bathroom of his room on the 10th floor. 
GRIEF ON LI. A constant stream of people, including friends and some family members, visit the Parente home on First Street in <a href="/topics/Garden_City">Garden City</a> to leave flowers and plants, stuffed animals and a poster. 
PLANS TO MAKE. Parente family members try to make funeral arrangements and bring the four bodies home to Nassau County. 
REACHING OUT. The Garden City school district offers counseling for parents and students at the high school library for those struggling with their grief.

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Developments in the Parente murder-suicide case

The brutal deaths of the Parente family of <a href="/topics/Garden_City">Garden City</a> have riveted <a href="/topics/Long_Island">Long Island</a>. 
It appears that the father of this well-to-do family - an American ideal in many ways - died in fear of financial ruin and humiliation. And yesterday, <a href="/topics/David_Kellermann">David Kellermann</a>, an officer of the troubled mortgage agency <a href="/topics/Freddie_Mac">Freddie Mac</a>, apparently killed himself. 
As this fragile economy rocks one life after another, more of us can sympathize with such desperate feelings. William Parente's alleged acts and Kellermann's apparent suicide are distant extremes, no doubt. 
But people are losing hope everywhere. 
Long Island's mental health hotlines report twice the number of calls as last year. Because of a layoff or loss of health insurance - or some other financial setback - people are giving in to alcohol abuse, panic and depression. Money problems are like water draining from a tub. Difficulties are exposed that were invisible in better times. Divorce and family violence can result. 
But that's because when times are hard, so many of us have trouble seeing properly what we should value. Long Island mental health agencies say they are seeing more middle-class people who have been laid off or cut back to half time. Often, they are embarrassed and put off seeking help until they are panicky. 
When people turn to violence or end their lives, they give away hope of starting over. But other families in trouble can learn from their examples. We may lose material things, but we must focus on what matters to move past despair. hN

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Tragedies remind all to focus on what matters

WEDNESDAY 
William, Betty and Catherine Parente check into a <a href="/topics/Baltimore">Baltimore</a>-area hotel. 
SUNDAY 
9 A.M. 
All four Parentes have breakfast together away from the hotel. 
10:30 A.M. 
Stephanie returns to campus; William, Betty, and Catherine go to their hotel room in the late morning. William kills Betty first then Catherine hours later. 
3-4 P.M. 
Stephanie returns to hotel and contacts her father via her cell phone. She goes up to the room and is killed when she enters. 
SHORTLY BEFORE MIDNIGHT 
William answers room phone and tells Stephanie's roommate that Stephanie is staying at hotel. He later cuts himself with knife and bleeds to death in bathroom. 
MONDAY 
11 A.M. 
Parente family misses checkout time. 
2:58 P.M. 
Hotel staff enters room and calls 911. Police find Betty and her daughters arranged on a king-sized bed and William in the bathroom. 
-- STAFF REPORTS

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Timeline for the Parentes' murder-suicide

Garden City Public Schools 
56 Cathedral AvenueGarden City, New York 11530516-478-1000 
Statement regarding the Parente Family Tragedy 
Garden City Public Schools expresses its deep sorrow over the tragedy that has taken the life of Catherine Parente, a student at the Middle School, alumna Stephanie (Class of 2007), and their parents. We extend our heartfelt sympathy to family and friends. 
Catherine was a wonderful, talented and sweet child who was treasured by teachers and staff members. Her sister, Stephanie, is remembered for her achievements in school and her friendly, outgoing personality. The children and the family will be very much missed by the entire school community. 
Our district's Crisis Response Team has met to develop a plan to help our school community in this difficult time. Counselors will be providing support for students and families as well as offering suggestions for parents to help their children cope with this tragic loss.

ny-gradencityschools-statement

Garden City Public Schools statement on the Parente tragedy

Stunned neighbors and friends were reeling yesterday from the news of the murder-suicide of a <a href="/topics/Garden_City">Garden City</a> family of four, saying they had only questions about what led to such a violent end. 
"I just can't make sense of it," said Cathy Grasman, who works at a <a href="/topics/Floral_Park%2C_NY">Floral Park</a> animal grooming and boarding facility that is caring for the two Maltese dogs the family dropped off last week, before their visit to see their eldest daughter in <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a>. 
Outside William and Betty Parente's First Street home, which overlooks the Cherry Valley Golf Course, some who knew the couple left bouquets of flowers at their doorstep. 
"My wife and I were deeply, deeply fond of this family and are just absolutely devastated," said next-door neighbor Robert Krener, who sold the Parentes their home 12 years ago and developed a friendship with them, getting together for dinners and exchanging presents. "You could line a hundred families up and they would be the least likely candidate" for this, he said. 
William Parente, 59, Betty Parente, 58, and their two daughters - Stephanie, 19, a sophomore at Loyola College, and her sister, Catherine, 11 - were found dead Monday afternoon inside a locked hotel room at the Sheraton Baltimore North. 
Newspapers had piled up at the Parente's ranch-style house, said Krener, 64. When the police came to the neighborhood Monday night, Krener searched the Internet for information and discovered the tragic events. 
Seymour Eidman, a <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> lawyer who in 2001 shared a suite of offices with William Parente, an attorney, said, "Every <a href="/topics/Christmas">Christmas</a>, we got a card with a picture of Bill, his wife and daughters," Eidman said. "It is beyond belief," he said of the deaths. 
Garden City schools superintendent Robert Feirsen said the district put a statement about the deaths on its Web site and informed parents. Today, grief counselors will be in each school, he said, and tonight, a session will be held for parents at the high school. 
Garden City High School freshman Julie Fedele, 14, said, "You never really think that's going to happen. It's creepy." 
Staff writers Anthony DeStefano and Christina Hernandez contributed to this story.

LIGARD22

REACTION: Neighbors stunned by deaths

Mystery surrounded what police say was the murder-suicide of four members of a Garden City family found this week inside a Baltimore-area hotel room, deaths that have shaken two communities and left them asking why. 
The bodies of William Parente, 59, a real estate attorney who was said to be depressed over the death of his mother and having financial problems, his wife Betty, 58, and their children, Stephanie, 19, and Catherine, 11 - were discovered Monday afternoon in their 10th-floor room in a Sheraton hotel in <a href="/topics/Towson">Towson</a>, Md., just outside Baltimore. The family had traveled to the area to visit Stephanie, who was a sophomore at Loyola College in <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a>. 
"I still don't know what happened," said Juan Sandoval of Garden City. "My wife knew them. It's terrible." 
Baltimore County police said little yesterday about the manner of their deaths, only that the circumstances were not immediately clear to investigators. More information was expected to be released after the completion of autopsies, which were to begin yesterday. 
"Even [Monday] night we could not say it was a murder-suicide or even a homicide," said Cpl. Michael Hill, a department spokesman. "Overnight they came up with enough evidence to say definitively." 
Garden City Village police visited the Parentes' house Monday night, neighbors said. 
Hill ruled out stabbing and gunshots as causes of death. He declined to say who was suspected to be the perpetrator, where in the room the bodies were found or whether a suicide note had been found. The Parentes' room was locked from the inside. 
William Parente, who was a private estate and tax attorney based in a Lexington Avenue high-rise, graduated from Brooklyn College in 1970. He got his law degree from Brooklyn Law School in 1973. 
A Garden City neighbor said Parente had been depressed since the death of his mother a year ago last week. 
A spokesman for state Attorney General <a href="/topics/Andrew_Cuomo">Andrew Cuomo</a> said investigators received a complaint from a <a href="/topics/Queens">Queens</a> attorney about Parente's financial dealings yesterday and said it was being looked into. 
Police said hotel staff found the Parentes' bodies Monday afternoon in a 10th-floor room after the family did not check out as expected. 
The bodies were taken to the office of the medical examiner in Baltimore for autopsies, police said. 
The Parente family had breakfast together Sunday, and some employees at the Sheraton Baltimore North Hotel recall seeing some of the family members later that day, Hill said. 
Stephanie Parente was last known to be on campus Sunday morning, when she ate with her roommates in a campus dining hall, according to the Rev. Brian Linnane, the Loyola president. 
Her friends began to worry Sunday night when Parente didn't come back to her dorm to study for a chemistry exam Monday, Linnane said. 
"The chemistry book was open on the desk, and it was strange," Linnane said. "It raised questions about where she was the night before an exam that was perceived to be important." 
The friends tried Parente's cell phone but got no answer, he said. Then they called the hotel, about five miles from campus, and were transferred to the Parente family's room. William Parente answered and said his daughter was staying with the family at the hotel, Linnane said. 
The school held a special Mass last night for Stephanie. "I'm still in shock; I still can't even get my head around it," said Collin Wheeler, a sophomore from <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> who attended the Mass. "I just feel really hopeless." 
Catherine Parente was a sixth-grader at Garden City Middle School, where the school district yesterday arranged for counselors to be available to speak with grieving students. 
Betty Parente was on the board of the Tri Town Auxiliary of United Cerebral Palsy of <a href="/topics/Nassau">Nassau</a>, said auxiliary president Lucille Messina, and volunteered with the Girl Scouts and the <a href="/topics/American_Cancer_Society">American Cancer Society</a>. 
WHO THEY WERE 
WILLIAM PARENTE, 59 
Tax and estate-planning attorney 
Brooklyn College, class of 1970 
Brooklyn Law School, class of 1973 
&nbsp; 
BETTY PARENTE, 58 
Board member, Tri-town Auxiliary of United Cerebral Palsy of Nassau County 
Volunteer, American Cancer Society, Girl Scouts 
STEPHANIE PARENTE, 19 
Garden City High School, class of 2007 
Loyola College, class of 2011 
Speech pathology major; natural sciences minor 
Former coxswain for women's and men's crew teams 
Volunteer at <a href="/topics/Habitat_for_Humanity">Habitat for Humanity</a> and St. Mary's School in Govans, a northern Baltimore neighborhood, via Loyola's Center for Community Service and Justice 
Accepted to study in <a href="/topics/Newcastle">Newcastle</a>, <a href="/topics/England">England</a>, next year 
&nbsp; 
CATHERINE PARENTE, 11 
Sixth-grader at Garden City Middle School 
Played basketball, soccer and lacrosse 
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS 
WHO WAS THE KILLER? Police have called the deaths a murder-suicide, but have not said which family member killed the others. They said the safety lock was engaged from the inside of the hotel room. 
WHEN DID THEY DIE? The roommates of Stephanie Parente, a sophomore at Loyola College, became concerned when she didn't return to her room Sunday night to study for a chemistry exam the next morning. The bodies were discovered Monday afternoon. 
HOW DID THEY DIE? Police will not comment on how the four family members were killed, saying only that they were neither shot nor stabbed. 
WAS THERE A NOTE? Police said they found evidence overnight that the deaths were murders and a suicide, but would not say whether a note was left. 
WHAT WAS THE MOTIVE? Police in Baltimore would not discuss motive. 
Neighbors said William Parente was depressed over the death of his mother a year ago last week. The state attorney general's office confirmed that it had received a complaint yesterday about a financial matter involving Parente.

LIDEAD22

Mystery deaths of an LI family

The father was a successful breadwinner with a <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> law practice that paid for a Hamptons condo; his wife a devoted stay-at-home mom and <a href="/topics/Breast_Cancer">breast cancer</a> survivor who baked cakes for her <a href="/topics/Garden_City">Garden City</a> neighbors and spent free time on charity work. Their two daughters were cheerful, talented, friendly, athletic and poised for achievements. 
But Monday, all four of them were found dead in a Towson, Md., hotel room in an apparent murder-suicide - news that left those who knew the seemingly perfect Parente family devastated and bewildered. 
"I can't imagine a more wonderful, loving, spiritual, funny family," said Robert Krener, 64, who lived next door to the Parentes in Garden City and sold them their ranch-style home about 12 years ago. 
The Parentes - devout parishioners at St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church, steadfast fans at their daughters' school functions and sporting events and beloved neighbors always ready with a dinner invitation or a pastry - originally hailed from Bay Ridge, <a href="/topics/Brooklyn">Brooklyn</a>, but became inextricably woven into the fabric of their Garden City community. 
"Regardless of whatever transpired over the weekend, they were a great family to be associated with in town," said Michael Rix, who coached Catherine, 11, in basketball and whose youngest daughter shared the lead with Catherine in the Stewart School's production last year of "The Magic Flute." 
"They were big supporters of their children. They were at every game rooting, good or bad, and always had nice words to say about the opponents, the coaches, everyone." 
The Rev. Joseph Schlafer, pastor of St. Joseph's, said the Parentes had been active parishioners for the past decade. 
"We grieve the loss with the whole community," he said. "They had many friends here who loved them very much, and are deeply saddened." 
William Parente, 59, was a 35-year attorney with a solo tax and estate planning practice on Lexington Avenue. 
His wife, Betty, 58, was more outgoing, but William Parente was well-liked and known by friends and neighbors to be a hard worker who logged long hours and doted on Catherine, Betty and their elder daughter, Stephanie, 19. 
"He was the sweetest guy, the most lovely person," said Seymour Eidman, a <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> attorney who shared a suite of offices with Parente in 2000 and 2001. "It is beyond belief." 
Marianne Quinn, 53, of Garden City, who said she was Betty's best friend, said William Parente had been depressed since the death of his mother a year ago last week. 
She described Betty Parente, who kept a busy roster of charitable activities, as a "God-loving person" who attended Mass and said the rosary almost daily. 
"I can't believe she's gone," Quinn said. "They had everything going for them, everything." 
If her husband was reserved, Betty Parente was gregarious enough for both, friends said. Her recent battle with cancer "gave her an appreciation for life," Krener said. Rix, the basketball coach, said Betty Parente "lit up a room." 
Lucille Messina, president of the Tri-town Auxiliary of United Cerebral Palsy, where Betty Parente was a board member, said she was "the sweetest lady you'd ever want to meet. You'd fall in love with her instantly." 
"We used to call her Betty Boop because she was so bubbly," said a neighbor, Linda Matteini, 55. "She loved her daughters with every fiber of her body." 
Cathy Grasman, who boarded the family's two Maltese dogs, Buttons and Cupcake, at her <a href="/topics/Floral_Park%2C_NY">Floral Park</a> store, said yesterday while dropping off flowers at the house that she would be willing to raise the dogs. She praised Betty Parente as a conscientious pet owner. 
"If you were a dog, you wanted to be her dog," Grasman said. 
Over the weekend, the family was visiting Stephanie Parente - known as&nbsp; Steph - at Loyola College in <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a>, where she was a sophomore majoring in speech pathology. Last year, Stephanie Parente was a coxswain for the women's and men's crew teams, but this year, she declined to participate because of schoolwork, said Al Ramirez, the crew head coach. Friends said she hoped to be a dentist and was involved with volunteer work and extracurricular activities despite a heavy course load. She had also been accepted to study abroad next year, in Newcastle, England. 
"She was so excited for it," said a friend, Natalie Basile, 19, of Mountainside, N.J., a fellow Loyola student who lived down the hall from Stephanie last year. 
Stephanie's core adviser at Loyola, Mark Osteen, said she was a "sweet and kind person who always had a generous word for her peers." 
"She didn't speak often in class, but her comments were always as thoughtful as her general presence," Osteen said in comments posted in a tribute to Stephanie on Loyola's Web site. "It's an unfathomable tragedy to have such a young and promising life cut short."

LIFAM22

Friends paint picture of the perfect foursome

WHO WAS THE KILLER? Police have called the deaths a murder-suicide, but have not said which family member killed the others. They said the safety lock was engaged from the inside of the hotel room. 
WHEN DID THEY DIE? The roommates of Stephanie Parente, a sophomore at Loyola College, became concerned when she didn't return to her room Sunday night to study for a chemistry exam the next morning. The bodies were discovered Monday afternoon. 
HOW DID THEY DIE?Police will not comment on how the four family members were killed, saying only that they were neither shot nor stabbed. 
WAS THERE A NOTE? Police said they found evidence overnight that the deaths were murders and a suicide, but would not say whether a note was left. 
WHAT WAS THE MOTIVE? Police in <a href="/topics/Baltimore">Baltimore</a> would not discuss motive. Neighbors said William Parente was depressed over the death of his mother a year ago last week. The state attorney general's office confirmed that it had received a complaint Tuesday about a financial matter involving Parente.

ny-txtdead2212679751apr21

Questions in the Parente family deaths

<a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> State attorney general's office investigators are probing a complaint from a <a href="/topics/Queens">Queens</a> lawyer who says he invested hundreds of thousands of dollars with William M. Parente and then tried to get his money back in recent weeks, only to have the checks bounce. 
Parente promised to pay back nearly $450,000 to Bruce Montague, 47, a <a href="/topics/Bayside%2C_NY">Bayside</a> attorney, but Montague said the checks bounced Tuesday - a day after Parente, his wife and two daughters were found dead. 
Baltimore County police said Tuesday they didn't know the motive for the deaths. 
A spokesman for Attorney General <a href="/topics/Andrew_Cuomo">Andrew Cuomo</a> said Tuesday that investigators in the Suffolk Regional Office in <a href="/topics/Hauppauge%2C_NY">Hauppauge</a> were looking into Montague's complaint. 
Over the past six years, Montague said he made investments in about 20 different deals to fund short-term, high-interest loans with Parente. It was a high-risk venture, Montague said, but the quarterly returns were substantial - about 10 to 15 percent. 
The <a href="/topics/Bernard_Madoff">Bernard Madoff</a> scandal in December caused Montague to rethink his investment. He told Parente he wanted out. 
"I certainly feel foolish that I invested like this, but my feeling foolish is overpowered by my anger and desire to get this out there," Montague said. 
Parente, 59, a tax and estate attorney, delayed, Montague said. The money was tied up in international accounts and it took time to make wire transfers, Montague said Parente told him. 
Montague said he recently received six checks, worth about $450,000 from Parente. On Thursday, Montague said, Parente told him he could deposit two but to wait with the others. Tuesday, Montague said a bank official told him the four others would not clear.

ny-limont2212679223apr21

Lawyer: Parente owed me hundreds of thousands

WILLIAM PARENTE, 59 
Tax and estate-planning attorney 
Brooklyn College, class of 1970 
Brooklyn Law School, class of 1973 
BETTY PARENTE, 58 
Board member, Tri-town Auxiliary of United Cerebral Palsy of Nassau County 
Volunteer, American Cancer Society, Girl Scouts 
STEPHANIE PARENTE, 19 
Garden City High School, class of 2007 
Loyola College, class of 2011 
Speech pathology major; natural sciences minor 
Former coxswain for women's and men's crew teams 
Volunteer at <a href="/topics/Habitat_for_Humanity">Habitat for Humanity</a> and St. Mary's School in Govans, a northern <a href="/topics/Baltimore">Baltimore</a> neighborhood, via Loyola's Center for Community Service and Justice 
Accepted to study in <a href="/topics/Newcastle">Newcastle</a>, <a href="/topics/England">England</a>, next year 
CATHERINE PARENTE, 11 
Sixth-grader at Garden City Middle School 
Played basketball, soccer and lacrosse

ny-txtbio2212679161apr21

Biographical information on the Parente family

COMPLETE COVERAGE: Parente family tragedy

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