A daughter’s frantic 911 call led police to a North Royalton home where they found her elderly parents and her ex-husband all dead from gunfire.
Emilia and Sorin Ciortan, both 71, were discovered shot to death inside their residence shortly before 8 p.m. Tuesday, according to the North Royalton Police Department. Their daughter’s ex-husband, Stefan Pascu, 71, was also found dead at the scene from what investigators determined was a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, with a firearm recovered nearby.
The daughter had called emergency dispatchers after spotting Pascu’s vehicle in her parents’ driveway and failing to reach the couple by phone for roughly 30 minutes. “I think I have an intruder in my parents’ house. It’s my ex,” she told the dispatcher, according to WKYC.
“They haven’t been answering in a half hour. I was calling on the phone, and I don’t know what to do.”
When asked what might have brought Pascu to the home, the daughter explained that it was her birthday and that her former spouse had been consumed by resentment since their divorce more than a decade earlier. “We’ve been divorced, and he came back from the country from Romania. He’s been here for a month or so,” she frantically told the operator. “He’s been acting very strange.”
“Just been so mad and can’t let go for more than 10 years now,” she added.
Officers initially entered the residence after being unable to make contact with anyone inside. They found Emilia Ciortan with a fatal gunshot wound to the head in the dining room. Sorin Ciortan had been shot in the head in an upstairs living room. Police then withdrew from the home, with Pascu’s car still parked outside, but did not immediately locate him.
The Southwest Enforcement Bureau tactical unit was called to the scene and conducted a more thorough search of the property. Team members discovered Pascu’s body in the lower level of the home.
The North Royalton Detective Bureau has taken the lead on the investigation, working with assistance from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
The couple’s daughter had tried to warn authorities about Pascu’s increasingly erratic behavior since his return from Romania approximately one month prior to the killings. Her birthday appeared to have served as the triggering date for the attack, though investigators have not publicly speculated on any specific motive beyond the long-standing animosity she described.
The triple fatality has shaken the suburban Cleveland community of North Royalton, where the Ciortans had resided. Authorities have not announced any additional persons of interest in the case.