Our 'Officers of the Courts' Need Help

Four killed in Baltimore hotel room in apparent murder-suicide were family from Long Island
The New York Daily News by ANDREW ZALESKI IN BALTIMORE AND NICHOLAS HIRSHON AND RICH SCHAPIRO IN NEW YORK - April 21, 2009

A beloved Manhattan lawyer killed his wife and two daughters in a Maryland hotel room and then took his own life in a sickening murder-suicide, cops said Tuesday. A hotel worker found the bodies of 59-year-old William Parente; his wife, Betty, 58, and daughters - Stephanie, 19, and Catherine, 11 - in their hotel room in Towson on Monday, Baltimore County cops said. Police refused to disclose the cause of death but noted the victims were not shot or stabbed; they also would not reveal ifthere was a note. It remained unclear what triggered William Parente, a tax and estate planning lawyer, to do the unthinkable. "The why and the motive in this is just a big blank right now," said Police Cpl. Michael Hill.

Investigators were examining a complaint they received Tuesday from a Queens lawyer about William Parente's financial dealings, said state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. The Parentes' neighbors along their quiet block in tony Garden City, L.I., were stunned by the sudden and violent end to what seemed to be a picture-perfect family. "They loved each other, they loved those girls and the girls loved them," said next-door neighbor Robert Krener, 64, whosaid he was unaware of anystress - financial or otherwise - that William Parente wasunder. The family also had a home in Westhampton Beach, L.I. "It's completely incomprehensible," said Krener, who, with his wife, would occasionally dine with the Parentes. Marianne Quinn, 53, who described herself as Betty Parente's "best friend," said she thought William Parente may have been depressed over his mom's death; the one-year anniversary of her passing was last week. Most friends said the deeply religious Catholic couple was outgoing and warm - the type of neighbors who brought gifts to new families on the block. "If you were in a bad mood, they snapped you right out of it," said Catherine Grasman, who runs a kennel in Floral Park, L.I., where the Parentes would bring their two Maltese pooches, Buttons and Cupcake. "When they came in, they lit up the room."

Police said the family was last spotted alive Sunday afternoon, not long after they shared what seemed to be a pleasant breakfast together. The Parentes were visiting Stephanie, a sophomore at Baltimore's Loyola College. The teenager's death left the Catholic campus shaken."She was the last person you would think had anything wrong in her life," said sophomore Pooja Bhatnagar, 19. "I saw her Friday, before she was going to meet with her family, and she was happy. Everything seemed okay." Betty Parente, a stay-at-home mom who moved with her family from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, to Long Island a dozen years ago, was on the board of the Tri Town Auxiliary of United Cerebral Palsy of Nassau County. "She loved her daughters with every fiber of her body," said neighbor Linda Mattei. "This is a shock to everybody."  rschapiro@nydailynews.com