Photo: getty
Another murder-suicide story.
By Bernadette Giacomazzo — Written on Oct 14, 2019
In the United States today, murder-suicides are shockingly common. And while some studies suggest that it's a direct result of increased access to guns in the United States, other studies suggest that it's a natural end result of domestic violence. Regardless, it's happening at alarming rates in the United States today, and this man is the latest statistic. So who is Joseph Zaccardi, and what went wrong?
According to the Violence Policy Center, there are approximately 11 murder-suicides a week in the United States. And that's not the most sobering statistic: more than 1300 Americans each year die as a result of a murder-suicide, 90% of all murder-suicides involve a gun, and 67% of all murder-suicides involve an intimate partner. Because murder-suicides are a relatively new phenomenon in the United States (compared, say, to serial killers), there aren't a lot more statistics, and the Violence Policy Center is conducting further research into the phenomenon.
Joseph Zaccardi, however, is more than just a statistic — he's someone who murdered his family in cold blood, and for what seems like a senseless reason. Let's look at what we know about this awful, awful tragedy.
1. Deidre Zaccardi's friends are in a state of grief and shock.
According to The Boston Globe, there has been an outpouring of grief and shock from the friends, colleagues and loved ones of Deidre Zaccardi, the wife of Joseph Zaccardi, and one of the victims of the homicide. And the outlet also reported that Timothy J. Cruz, the Plymouth District Attorney, issued a statement that read, in part, that the Zaccardis were taken by gun violence, but didn't comment on the motive.
2. The Zaccardi family's bodies were found this past Monday morning.
The Boston Herald said that they spoke to the Chief Medical Examiner's office, and he confirmed that he found the bodies of the Zaccardi family this past Monday morning. Further, he said that the Abington, Massachusetts father may have killed them a day or so before. (It's interesting to note that Joseph Zaccardi was identified as an "Abington father" and not a "cold-blooded murderer," but that's another discussion for another day.)
3. Joseph Zaccardi identified himself as a "children's author."
According to his Facebook page, Joseph Zaccardi said that he was a children's author. However, he mostly sold his books on Amazon. His most recent book was a tome titled, perhaps ironically, All Mixed Up. His last public and chilling, post is below.
4. But he also said that he was "going crazy."
Hello, red flags, nice to meet you. "The dad of a family found shot dead Monday inside their Massachusetts home was “unemployed and going crazy,” he wrote on Facebook," noted The New York Post, and as we can see from above, a quick click on his page will reveal that that's exactly what he wrote in his "about" section.
That said, it could very well be a joke or something that he may have said on the spur of the moment. However, with mental illness being the crisis that it is in this country, you can't take ANY sorts of "jokes" like this lightly.
His default profile photo is below, too. Now, this could either be taken as a joke or be taken as something to be seriously concerned about. You be the judge.
5. Remember the names of the victims.
"The bodies of Joseph Zaccardi, his wife Deirdre, and their three children — daughter Alexis, 11, and twins Nathaniel and Kathryn, 9 — were discovered. They had all been shot," reported People.
6. What do we know about men who kill their families?
The National Institute of Justice reports that men like Joseph Zaccardi, who kill their families, all have one thing in common: they're possessively jealous and over-enmeshed with their partners. Economics, contrary to popular belief, has nothing to do with their desire to kill their family. "The most common type of killer was a possessively jealous type, and that many of the men who… commit murder-suicide, as well as those who kill their children, also seem to fit that profile. A jealous substance abuser with a gun poses a particularly deadly combination of factors; one that was present in about 40 percent of the killers interviewed," said the report.
Bernadette Giacomazzo is an editor, writer, and photographer whose work has appeared in People, Teen Vogue, Us Weekly, The Source, XXL, HipHopDX, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Post, and more. She is also the author of The Uprising series. For more information about Bernadette Giacomazzo, click here.