Victims in apparent double murder-suicide identified as father-daughter incest couple, girl's adoptive father
Three victims in an apparent double murder-suicide have been identified as a father-daughter couple who had been charged with incest and the girl's adoptive father. The father-daughter pair's infant son was also found dead in an incident related to the murder-suicide.
Authorities said on Thursday afternoon that the body of Steven Pladl, 42, was found in a vehicle in New York while the bodies of his biological daughter, 20-year-old Katie Pladl, and her adoptive father, 56-year-old Anthony Fusco, were found in a vehicle several miles away in Connecticut.
WNCN reports that all three victims died of gunshot wounds and that Steven Pladl is believed to have taken his own life.
The alleged double murder-suicide is linked to the death of Steven and Katie Pladl's 7-month-old son, Bennett, who was found at a home in Knightdale, North Carolina, that had belonged to the pair, confirmed Knightdale Police Chief Lawrence Capps.
Photos from the case:
Steven Pladl and his ex-wife, Katie's birth mother Alyssa, gave her up for adoption shortly after she was born in 1998.
In 2016, the then 18-year-old Katie located her birth parents and moved in with them in their North Carolina home, where Steven and Katie began an incestual relationship.
Alyssa Pladl said she had no idea a sexual relationship had begun between her ex-husband and her daughter until she read one of her other daughter's journals where she found drawings of Katie being pregnant and found her daughter had written that her father was making her refer to Katie as her step-mom.
Steven and Katie had a baby together in September 2017. In November 2017, arrest warrants were issued for the father and daughter on charges of incest with an adult, adultery and contributing to delinquency.
They were located in January 2018 and taken into custody. Both of them bonded out of jail.
Katie Pladl's bond terms required her to live with her adoptive parents, who live in New York.
