A woman’s estranged ex-husband arrived at her parents’ Ohio home and fatally shot them before he died in what police described as an apparent murder-suicide.
The woman called police the evening of Tuesday, November 10, after she noticed her ex-husband’s car in the driveway of her parents’ North Royalton home, where he was “not welcome,” according to the North Royalton Police Department.
She couldn’t reach her father, Sorin R. Ciortan, or mother, Emilia A. Ciortan.
Officers entered the home and found Sorin, 71, fatally shot in the head in an upstairs hallway before finding Emilia, 71, dead in a dining room, where she had also been shot in the head, police said in a Wednesday, November 11, news release.
“Officers withdrew from the residence as the subject’s car was still present at the residence, but he had not yet been located,” police said.
Afterward, a specialized police unit, the Southwest Enforcement Bureau, arrived and found the woman’s ex-husband, Stefan Pascu, dead in a room on the home’s lower level near a gun, according to authorities.
Pascu, 71, had “an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound,” police said.
Pascu allegedly killed his former in-laws on his ex-wife’s birthday after he returned to the U.S. from Romania, the woman told police, per NBC affiliate WKYC-TV.
When a 911 dispatcher asked the woman why Pascu visited her parent’s home, she said, “It’s my birthday, and he’s just been so mad and can’t let go for more than 10 years now,” the TV station reported.
“We’ve been divorced, and he came back from the country from Romania. He’s been here for a month or so. He’s been acting very strange,” the woman added.
North Royalton Police Sgt. John Stolarski told the TV station that her birthday “could have played a part” in the killings.
“If he’s unstable, if he wanted to do something symbolic because it was her birthday,” Stolarski said.
Police are continuing to investigate the incident in North Royalton, located about a 15-mile drive south from Cleveland.
Sorin and Emilia were both Romanian and had two sons, including one who lives in Romania and another son in Ohio, the pastor of the St. Helena Romanian Byzantine Catholic Church in Cleveland, Very Rev. Petru Stinea, told ABC affiliate WEWS-TV.
The pastor said they were his friends and church members, describing the couple as “kind, generous and supportive of the church and our community.”
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