A New Jersey insurance executive shot his wife and daughter to death before killing himself inside their $1.7 million mansion, authorities confirmed.
David Grodnick, 61, his wife Lora Grodnick, 62, and their daughter Sloane Grodnick, 24, were discovered with fatal gunshot wounds to the head on Oct. 2 in Montgomery Township, according to the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office. Investigators classified the deaths of Lora and Sloane as homicides and David’s as suicide.
Officers first responded to the family’s home on Wild Azalea Lane around 2:59 p.m. On Oct. 1 following a welfare check request, but they could not locate anyone inside. The search continued until authorities gained entry shortly before 6 p.m. The following evening.
Inside, they found Lora and Sloane in separate bedrooms. David was discovered elsewhere in the residence with a gun still in his hand, prosecutors said. Medical personnel from Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Somerset pronounced all three dead at the scene.
“The investigation, which remains ongoing, has yielded that the homicide deaths of both Lora and Sloane Grodnick were an isolated incident and there are no threats to the public from this tragic occurrence,” the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office said in its Tuesday release. It remained unclear how long the three had been dead before they were found.
David Grodnick held the position of senior vice president and underwriting counsel at Land Services USA, a Philadelphia-based insurance agency handling commercial real estate transactions nationwide, according to the Montgomery News. He held a business administration degree from the University of Miami and a bachelor’s degree in English from McDaniel College, where he had played lacrosse.
Sloane Grodnick had attended The Hun School, an elite private boarding school in Princeton, before earning her undergraduate degree from the Savannah College of Art and Design. She was pursuing a master’s degree at the Rhode Island School of Design at the time of her death.
The family had relocated to Montgomery Township from Princeton and held memberships at two exclusive clubs: Bedens Brook Country Club in Skillman and TPC Jasna Polana, a premier private club in Princeton.
The Montgomery Township home where the three died is valued at approximately $1.75 million according to Zillow estimates.