A man who took his own life after killing four members of his family had shared a concerning post just days before the incident.

The horrific incident unfolded in a quiet cul-de-sac in Nassau County, Long Island, on Sunday, days after the family's 95-year-old matriarch, Theresa DeLucia, died.

Her son, Joseph DeLucia, Jr., 59, is accused of gunning down three of his siblings as well as his niece, before running out onto the front lawn and turning the gun on himself.

The horrifying crime happened in the small blue home Theresa owned in Syosset, and lived in with Joseph, with reports stating that he had become upset at his siblings' plans to sell the property.

Joseph, who worked as an automobile mechanic and had formerly been an EMT, had reportedly lived in the home his whole life and had been upset that he would need to find somewhere else to live once the property, which is believed to be worth $900,000, was sold.

Nassau County Police Capt. Captain Stephen Fitzpatrick said during a press conference that Joseph had used a pump-action Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun to kill his three siblings - Joanne Kearns, 69, of Tampa, Florida; Tina Hammond, 64, of East Patchogue; and Frank DeLucia, 63, of Durham, North Carolina, as the family convened in the den of the home.

He also shot his 30-year-old niece, Victoria Hammond, to death before running out into the front yard and fatally shooting himself.

Fitzpatrick added: "Officers found him with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his chest. He was pronounced at the scene."

A neighbor, 73-year-old Sandy Landsman, had called 911 after hearing Joseph screaming in the yard before pulling the trigger, telling the New York Post: "We heard a high-pitched scream, it was Joe screaming, then one shot. I was shocked. I never would have thought beforehand that this would happen."

Landsman added that the man had been "very upset" at the prospect of the home being sold, explaining: "We heard he was very upset over this. He didn’t know where to go, he had lived there his whole life.

"One of the siblings said she would take care of him, that she would let him come and live with her. Apparently, that didn’t sound too good to him."

Fitzpatrick added that investigators had been told that Joseph had past mental health issues, which have not yet been confirmed, however, neighbors said that he had been struggling since his mother died on August 19.

He added that Joseph had been "kind of a hoarder", explaining: "He spent all his money on tools and stuff. The house was pretty much hoarded, packed with tools, stuff involved with an auto mechanic.

"He was living there his entire life, never lived on his own. So you could see his mindset, where his world was now changing and he was in a panic."

Joseph had also shared a concerning post on Facebook on the day that his mother died, just a week before shooting his siblings and himself.

He had posted a photo of a grey Tesla car with a New York license plate reading: "Deprssed".

Still reeling from losing his mother, things appeared to come to a head as his siblings convened on the home over the weekend to meet with a local real estate agent, Mary Macaluso, on Sunday to discuss putting the property up for sale.

Macaluso had been headed to the home to speak to the family, however, when she arrived she found the property had already been taped off by police.

Fitzpatrick added: "When this happened, they arrived to meet the realtor. They brought Starbucks, they were assembled in the den area — the brother had stayed behind."

He revealed that Joseph had fired 13 shots in total, aiming 12 at the victims before firing the final one at himself, meaning he'd had to reload the gun several times.

Officers described the scene they found in the home of the late Theresa, who'd worked for three decades as a nurse at a local hospital as well as volunteering in local shelters and food banks - as one of the most horrifying they'd encountered.

Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said: "In 41 years, that was one of the most horrific scenes I’ve ever seen."

Fitzpatrick also revealed that the man had a clean record bar one arrest for drink-driving in 1983, and there had been one wellness check call to the home in 2022 which did not lead to any police action.

Our thoughts remain with the family and friends of the deceased.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org.

Featured image credit: James Carbone/Newsday RM via Getty Images

The emotional final journal entries of the American man who was killed by an isolated tribe on a remote Indian island have been revealed.

John Allen Chau, 27, went to North Sentinel Island to encourage the Sentinelese, an indigenous group who refuse contact with the outside world, to convert to Christianity. He was met with a flurry of arrows when he arrived, and died on the island, which is off-bounds to visitors.

According to his mother, hours before his death in a journal entry addressed to his family, the traveler wrote that he believed it was important to share his religion with the endangered tribe, but confessed he didn't want to die.

The young missionary claimed that, after a treacherous journey in the dark in a boat to the area where the tribe lived in huts, he saw them.

The men, who stood about 5-feet-5 inches tall with yellow paste on their face, reacted angrily to his presence, as he tried to speak their language and sing "worship songs" to them, he wrote.

To see just how hostile these tribespeople can become, check out the chilling footage below:

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"I hollered, 'My name is John, I love you and Jesus loves you,' " he wrote in his journal, which was shared with The Washington Post. A child then shot at him with an arrow, which pierced his waterproof Bible.

Shortly before he left the safety of his boat to meet the tribesmen on the island, he added: "You guys might think I’m crazy in all this but I think it’s worthwhile to declare Jesus to these people, God, I don’t want to die."

Chau’s obsession with the secluded tribe was also "confirmed" by his friend, Remco Snoeij, whom he met back in 2016 when the Washington state missionary showed up at his dive shop on Havelock Island.

After bonding through scuba diving, Snoeij told The Washington Post that Chau seemed to be intensely interested in the North Sentinelese tribe. “He shared a keep interest in researching and knowing more about them.”

John Chau's mission was not only dangerous, but illegal:

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On dive excursions, Snoeij would tell Chau stories about two fishermen who breached the island in 2006 and were strangled by islanders, and about rumors that the Japanese military had once buried gold there during World War II.

“It must have struck a cord [with Chau]", he said. “He lost his mind, definitely. But ask any adventurer. You have to lose your mind a little bit, otherwise, you don’t do it.”

The 27-year-old's dead body was reportedly seen by fishermen in the following days on the island, which is located in India's remote Andaman and Nicobar chain. The exact timeframe of these events remains unclear.

A senior police officer confirmed to Andaman Sheekha that a murder case had been registered against unknown members of the Sentinelese tribe.

However, because contact with the tribe is forbidden, Chau's killers allegedly cannot be prosecuted for taking his life. Police have reportedly stated that seven fishermen have been arrested for illegally ferrying the missionary to the island.

Chau’s friend Neil MacLeod named him "a warm and engaging and friendly kind of fellow" who was "a million miles from what you'd expect a missionary to be".

In an interview with the MailOnline, MacLeod added that Chau had been planning the trip for at least three years, and that he was "committed" to preaching to the Sentinelese about Christianity.

"He recognized the dangers of traveling there, but I think he had a sense of call," he said. "This was something he was working on for three years. He was committed to going there. In his view, he was trying to help these people. There are islands that are nearby and he was making relationships and connections to help him get to the islands...He was a lovely character and wanted to help people."

After his death was confirmed yesterday, Chau's family took to social media to publicly mourn him. In their emotional tribute, they named him "a beloved son, brother, uncle and best friend" and admitted he made the trip of his "own free will".

"We recently learned from an unconfirmed report that John Allen Chau was reported killed in India while reaching out to members of the Sentinelese Tribe in the Andaman Islands," they wrote on Instagram. "Words cannot express the sadness we have experienced about this report. He was a beloved son, brother, uncle and best friend to us. To others, he was a Christian missionary, a wilderness EMT, an international soccer coach and a mountaineer."

The family continued: "He loved God, life, helping those in need and had nothing but love for the Sentinelese people. We forgive those reportedly responsible for his death. We also ask for the release of those friends he had in the Andaman Islands. He ventured out on his own free will and his local contacts need not be persecuted for his own actions. As a family, we ask for your understanding and respect for him and us during this time. Thank you, The Chau family."

I'm sure over the next coming months, this controversial and somewhat baffling story will take many twists and turns, and although people will have differing opinions about whether or not John Chau was right to attempt to contact the tribe, nobody deserves to die simply for attempting to make peace.

Facebook is an extremely powerful platform but it’s usually not until someone truly needs something that its merits as something functional become clear. Whether its a lost wedding ring or a campaign to find the kind stranger who turned someone’s life around, it’s a great way to put the word out.

However, after years spent trying to uncover the truth about her brother’s murder, it certainly wasn’t here that Penny Farmer was expecting to find her brother’s killer, in that familiar square frame, looking calm and collected.

It was in the idyllic waters of the Caribbean - a world of sea, smiles and sunshine - that Chris Farmer and Peta Frampton were murdered. The couple, 25 and 24 respectively, had been travelling and were thought to have set off on a sailing expedition from Belize.

The world was a very different place in the seventies and communication was understandably patchy. Chris’ last letter to his parents said that they had met an American and his young sons and that they would be travelling on his boat, rather than getting a bus to Mexico as they had planned. Now setting sail for Honduras, they trusted their host entirely.

In July 1978 their bodies were found floating off the coast of Guatemala. They had been tortured, tied up and weighed down with engine parts. The doctor who performed the autopsy stated that "the aspects of [both bodies] were monstrous".

After the hiatus had begun to drag, Chris’ father called the harbour master in Belize. He revealed that the Justin B had set sail with Chris and Peta on board but had returned without them. He made no further progress.

Meanwhile, Peta’s family were similarly distraught. Her letters confirmed that they were indeed on a sailing expedition. In the last letter she sent to her parents, Peta signed off with: "Nothing much happens on a boat."

The yachtsman, Silas Boston, was traced to Sacramento in California. He had a criminal record including firearms charges, assault and rape. Furthermore, the father of the two boys - his third of seven wives - had completely disappeared. Boston was questioned by the British Consulate General about the disappearance of the British couple however, they could find no conclusive proof.

"It's difficult to imagine just how difficult it was back then, with no computers or mobile phones," says Penny. However, Chris’ mum was allowed to speak to Silas over the phone. However, he was rude and obstructive.

It wasn’t until February that they had the phone call they had hoped would never happen. Penny came home and instantly noticed her brother’s graduation photograph. "The thought flickered through my head,” she told the BBC. “There will be no more photographs."

The bodies had been identified. It was Chris and Peta. The tone of the Farmers’ Manchester changed completely. But they couldn’t properly mourn the loss of Chris with so many questions unanswered.

"I could see the effect it had on my parents,” Penny explains. “But they didn't buckle. My mum took one day off work, not because she didn't love Chris, but because she thought she couldn't give into it. There was no counselling or medication, Mum and Dad just knew they had to cope. I find that really admirable."

"Guatemala was a third-world country and there wasn't really a Guatemalan police force. There was no communication with Britain, because they laid claim to Belize, which was a British territory.”

Boston’s story was inconsistent but the Sacramento Police Department couldn’t pin him down. With no Guatemalan news stories about the murder of the couple, there was very little local interest in the case. But most crucial of all was the fact that no one, it seemed, had tried to contact Boston’s sons.

"The American police weren't very helpful,” Penny adds. “The Greater Manchester Police handed the case back to my dad. And something happened in the 1980s, which we don't know the full extent of, that made the case fall off a cliff completely.”

The internet age meant fresh hope for Penny’s parents. Her dad emailed Sacramento Police Department, hoping to open up a fresh dialogue. However, they never replied and in 2013, he died not knowing why his son had been murdered.

On a cold October afternoon in 2015, Penny came home from a countryside walk in Oxfordshire. She opened her laptop, loaded Facebook and searched for the man she suspected of killing her brother. "Heaven knows why I didn't look earlier," she says. “But thank God I did."

Sure enough, he popped up. The beard, sunglasses and baseball cap might even have concealed his identity, did he not have his name written next to him. "I suppose I thought he was lost to us,” Penny explains. “He just seemed so remote and hidden.”

Penny consequently managed to find Russell and Vince, his two sons, as well as his fifth wife. She messaged them all but got no immediate reply. She contacted Greater Manchester Police, who contacted the Sacramento Police Department. It just so happened that they had recently reopened the case into the disappearance of Boston's third wife.

Russell and Vince were brought in for questioning and they explained that they had lived their whole lives in fear of their father’s violent tempter. Unbelievably, it turned out that the murder of their mother was an open family secret - and that they had spent decades trying to convince the police that their father had murdered Chris Farmer and Peta Frampton in Guatemala.

In March 2016, armed with statements from the two sons, Greater Manchester Police sat down with Chris Farmer’s family at their offices in Ashton-under-Lyne. "It's quite incredible how much I know about what happened that day," says Penny.

"Boston was a rapist. My brother was in a very bad way, tied-up on the top deck. Peta was down in the cabin. I don't really need to say any more. I hope people can join the dots without me being too graphic."

"The really heart-warming thing was that even though Chris had a fractured skull and other broken bones, and there was blood all over the deck, he was still trying to comfort Peta, telling her it was all going to be alright. Even when they were trussed-up like turkeys, waiting to be thrown overboard."

Russell claimed his father murdered two more tourists, possibly Scandinavian, just two weeks later. However, he also stated to Russell that he had killed 33 people - which would make him one of the most prolific serial killers in recorded history.

Penny travelled to California to meet Russell who, in an impossibly surreal scenario, had described the death of her brother. He explained that Chris had defended him from his father and that he had therefore turned on Chris.

Boston was eventually tracked to Eureka, California. Having lived a life of hedonism and horrific violence, he was nearing the end. He resided in a nursing home and it turned out, oddly enough, that the Facebook page had been his carer’s idea - after he’d complained about a lack of friends.

Now strapped to a hospital bed and facing a testing trial, he exercised his right to withdraw medical treatment. On 24 April 2017, Penny received the news that Boston had died. "He took the coward's way out," says Penny.

"I felt cheated. I would have relished seeing him in court and telling him how he'd devastated both our families. Bringing him down had become an all-consuming passion. But he exited on his terms. That was him sticking two fingers up at the world."

"Closure is a lovely term, and I do believe that closure only comes when the truth is known. My mother is 93 and now has all the answers to the questions that haunted her for 38 years. But just because you've found answers doesn't mean you stop hurting. I'm not quite there yet."

Penny’s book, Dead in the Water, sheds further light on the many twists and turns of their search for answers. A statement from Greater Manchester Police said the case was never closed: "As with all cases, when new information came up, we started looking back into it. The Farmer family were very positive about our investigation when more evidence came to light."

The Sacramento Police Department, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the FBI, Interpol, Scotland Yard, the National Crime Agency (formerly the Serious Organised Crime Agency) are all thought to have been involved. And yet, despite the adamant testimonies of two key witnesses, the case went cold.

Following his arrest in 1994, a convicted killer has uttered just two final words after spending the last 30 years on death row.

Loran Cole has finally had his sentence carried out following the brutal 1994 murder of 18-year-old John Edwards, who was attacked while on a camping trip with his older sister Pam.

The tragic incident took place in the Ocala National Forest, Florida, when Cole and an accomplice started speaking to the siblings around a campfire, per News.com.au.

After showing the siblings to a nearby pond, the two men beat and killed John, before taking a then-21-year-old Pam back to the campsite, where Cole raped her.

The next morning, Cole assaulted her once again before leaving her tied to a tree.

After Pam broke free, she was able to flag down a driver passing by, and the police were alerted. Officers shortly found John’s body face-down in the woods.

At the subsequent trial, Pam told the jury that her brother's last words were "I'm sorry" - as she had previously told him that she never wanted to go hiking.

Cole and his accomplice were found guilty of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to death and two life sentences.

The Daily Mail has since reported that Cole was executed by lethal injection at the age of 57 on Thursday at 6:00PM.

Prior to his death, he was joined by his son and a pen pal, where they shared a final meal of pizza, ice cream, and M&Ms.

Moments before his death at Florida State Prison, Cole was given the opportunity to share any final comments if she wished, BBC News reports.

He simply told the guard: "No, sir."

Cole was then strapped to a gurney and administered the three drugs through an IV drip. The first sedated him, the second paralysed him, while the third caused his heart to stop, per News.com.au.

Witnesses say his body "jerked and trembled" as his breathing became labored. He was pronounced dead 12 minutes later.

In a statement from John Edwards' family, they said they were "void of feelings and empathy for Mr. Cole".

"He placed himself into this arena," the statement continued. "We could never sanction a reduction in his sentence. He does not deserve mercy.

“Mr Cole has been granted 30 years of life in Florida State Prison. During those 30 years, he has been free to read books, study, eat proper meals, sleep in a bed, get medical care, bathe and exercise, receive visitors and to simply exist.

"This is something he brutally took from our son — life. That cannot be undone."

John and Pam's parents did not attend the execution.

Featured image credit: Florida Department of Corrections