New details emerge of scene of LI family's murder-suicide
The Baltimore-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 Maryland authorities, where, police said, William Parente, a Manhattan 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 & Barrel store across the street from the Sheraton Baltimore 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
