A husband and wife were killed Wednesday in an apparent murder-suicide in which the man stated he wanted to end the woman’s suffering, police said.
Richard DeLucia, 71, used a licensed .38-caliber revolver and fired a single shot at his wife, Ann, 70, in her room at Westchester Medical Center, and then took his own life, Westchester County police spokesperson Kieran O’Leary said.
A Westchester Medical Center security guard directs traffic as a Westchester County police car pulls out of the drive to the main entrance of the hospital, Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2018, in Valhalla, N.Y.
(AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
DeLucia left a note at the couple’s condo about how his wife’s suffering had made him distraught, and he wanted her pain to end.
Police said the couple was found in Ann’s room on the fourth-floor of the hospital in Valhalla, roughly 35 miles north of Manhattan. It wasn’t immediately clear what her medical condition was.
“Everybody’s just shocked,” Valeria Tassone, a resident at the DeLucias’ condo in Yorktown Heights, told The Associated Press. But, she said, “whatever took place is their business.”
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The medical center was briefly locked down amid the gunfire as authorities investigated the shooting. Police said the hospital’s security staff responded immediately, and law enforcement arrived within two minutes.
Hospital employees warned people within the hospital that there was an alert about someone with a weapon. One visitor said “they just made sure the patients were secured — they shut all the doors. They did what they had to do.”
Westchester Medical Center is an 895-bed Regional Trauma Center, which provides medical services to New York’s Hudson Valley, northern New Jersey and southern Connecticut.
A physician walks out of the emergency entrance to Westchester Medical Center, Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2018, in Valhalla, N.Y.
(AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
Former President Bill Clinton was taken to Westchester Medical Center for chest pains and shortness of breath in 2004. A test revealed the narrowing of several vessels of his heart and he had a procedure three days later at a Manhattan hospital.
ESPN’s Hannah Storm was also taken there in 2012 to treat injuries sustained in a propane gas grill accident.
Hospitals have been increasing security in the wake of last year’s Bronx hospital shooting, in which a doctor, Henry Bello, who had been forced to resign amid a sexual harassment claim, opened fire inside the hospital. Police said he killed a doctor and hurt six others.
A third-party company provides security for Westchester Medical Center.
Fox News’ Shira Bush and The Associated Press contributed to this report.