| Murder | Prozac | 1999-01-25 | New York | Father Kills his Two Sons |
http://ssristories.com/show.php?item=1053
Summary:
Paragraph five reads: "Short, a real estate manager who sources said takes the anti-depressant Prozac, has remained silent. Detectives said they are building a case against the 49-year-old that includes alleged murderous threats made to his wife." _________________________________________________________________
[New York Daily News, Monday, January 25, 1999, by Pete Donohue, Alice McQuillan and Bill Hutchinson, pp. 4-5]
BROTHERS WERE BUTCHERD, Little boys were hacked, bashed; dad heldcops.
The grisly slayings of two young brothers whose bodies were found hidden in a Chelsea building took an even ghastlier turn yesterday as autopsied showed one was chopped to death while the other’s head was crushed. The boys’ father, Ronald Shortwhom one investigator described as a "cold, strange guy" –was held on $10 million bail yesterday after being charged with child endangerment. The case is still under investigation. Law enforcement sources said Short’s bizarre behavior helped lead detectives to the bodies of this sons, who were reported missing by their mother on Jan. 13. In the days before the decomposed bodies of Richard, 7 and John, 3, were found, Short was seen sitting outside the chamber that hid his dead children, crying and disoriented, sources said. Short, a real estate manager who sources said takes the anti-depressant Prozac, has remained silent. Detectives said they are building a case against the 49-year-old that includes alleged murderous threats made to his wife.
Jolanta Short, 38, confided to a friend early Friday morning that her husband vowed to kill the children after she told him she was leaving him. "She was hysterical," said the friend, Anna Acosta. "She kept saying, "He’s going to kill them. I know he’s going to kill them.’"
Acosta said she tried to comfort Short, asking why she felt Richard and John were in danger. The terrified mother gave Acosta a chilling answer, saying, "Because he told me he’s going to kill them. I have to find them first." But police said the boys were already dead. Their decomposing bodies were found Saturday night hidden in a secret basement chamber of a building at 36 W. 25th St., a property their father manages. Autopsies showed young Richard suffered at least seven blows to the head and neck with a sharp object, including one to the back of the head, that nearly severed his spinal cord. He was found stuffed in a plastic bag with his legs tied with a telephone cord, sources said. His little brother, John, was bashed in the head so hard he suffered brain damage, authorities said. His body, dressed in blue-jean overalls, was found on a drop cloth with his Green Bay Packers Jacket next to him. Homicide detectives discovered the bodies by retracing Ronald Short’s tracks over the past two weeks. They learned that on Jan. 10, Short got a parking ticket on W. 21st st., sources said. They discovered Short managed the W.25th St. Building . A first search yielded nothing. Queens homicide squad Detectives Louis Pia and Brian Quinn returned to the building after maintenance men remembered cleaning up drops of blood in the boiler room around Jan. 11, sources said.
Pia and Quinn noticed a small door behind some junk, and became aware of the smell of leaning solvent, sources said. The detectives entered the dark room. They found the bodies on a shelf 10 feet up. "It’s so terribly sad that two young lives would be snuffed out in this fashion." Said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.
Short, who was on suicide watch last night, apparently began unraveling when his wile of nine years threatened to leave him and take the kids, law enforcement sources said. In the following days, Ronald refused to tell Jolanta where her children were. Detectives say the last person other than Short to see the boys alive was his sister, to whose Brooklyn home he took the children after the Jan. 9 argument. Short left his sister’s house at 11:30 p.m. Police believe the boys were slain in Chelsea soon after. In the days that followed, co-workers said they noticed Short was depressed, sources said. When asked what was bothering him, Short told a colleague he feared his wife was going to take his sons to live in her native Poland. At 3:30 a.m. Friday, Short stumbled into the St. Vincent’s Medical Center emergency room. He told doctors he was suicidal and that his wife was attempting to get him in trouble with the police. Hospital officials called Jolanta Short, the sources added. She called police, who went to the hospital and arrested her husband on a warrant for failing to show at a court hearing Friday on child endangerment charges. The charges stemmed from his refusing to answer questions from police about the whereabouts of his kids.
With Virginia Breen, Henri E. Cauvin and Bill Egbert