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New details emerge in NC incest couple triple murder-suicide

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(CBS News/AP) - WARNING: The 911 calls included in this story 
may be disturbing to some listeners

DOVER, N.Y. (CBS/AP) — What started out as a joyful reunion of a 
young woman with her birth parents soon turned sour, then 
shocking, and finally deadly.

A young woman named Katie married her birth father, had a baby 
with him and, after she decided to leave him, lost her life to 
him along with that of their child and her adoptive father. All 
three were laid to rest this weekend in upstate New York.

PREVIOUS: NC incest couple, baby dead in multi-state crime scenes

"We're all still in shock," said Shirley Mann, a neighbor of 
Katie's adoptive parents in Dover. "It's crazy. I don't know 
what else to say. It's horrible."

Katie, whose last name was Fusco at the time, had no idea before 
she moved in with Steven Pladl and his wife in August 2016 that 
he had an explosive temper, a history of abusive behavior and 
owned at least four guns.

A very normal life

In 1995, Steven Pladl was 20 when he met a 15-year-old girl 
named Alyssa on the internet. She soon became pregnant and gave 
birth to a girl they named Denise.

Alyssa Pladl told The Associated Press in an interview last week 
that they put the girl up for adoption when she was 8 months 
old. They were young and poor, she said, but she also believed 
Steven Pladl physically abused the baby. In her interview, she 
did not elaborate.

"It was so hard to give her up," Alyssa said, "but I had to 
because I wanted her to live and be happy."

For most of what was to be her short life, she was. Tony Fusco 
and his wife, Kelly, adopted the girl they renamed Katie and 
raised her with their biological daughter in Dover, about 80 
miles north of New York City.

"They had a very, very normal life," said Cary Gould, Kelly 
Fusco's brother. "My nickname for Katie was Pac-Man. She was 
always eating. She loved animals. She was a vegetarian."

Katie was an aspiring artist known at Dover High School for 
drawing comic strips. She planned to attend college and pursue a 
career in digital advertising.

"A pen and something to draw on became a safe place for me," she 
wrote in a blog post. "Ink became my weapon against rules and 
regulations. ... To be short; for me, a life without art is no 
life at all."

TIMELINE: Knightdale incest couple

After turning 18 in January 2016, Katie, who Gould said had been 
told she was adopted, found her birth parents and messaged them. 
The Pladls were happy to reunite with her.

Instead of going to college in August 2016, Katie moved in with 
the Pladls in Henrico County, Virginia, that month. Tony and 
Kelly Fusco were apprehensive, Gould said, but they thought 
Katie was old enough to make her own decisions and supported her.

All was not well in the Pladl home. Steven and Alyssa had 
already decided to separate and were sleeping in separate rooms. 
Alyssa Pladl said she had suffered emotional and verbal abuse by 
her husband for years.

"I was always on eggshells, whatever his mood was, everybody 
knew, and that mood was often not happy, a lot of yelling, a lot 
of things smashed in the house, in front of our kids," she said.

RELATED: Knightdale man impregnates biological daughter, plans 
to marry her, warrants say

Alyssa Pladl told Katie privately that Steven Pladl had abused 
her as a baby and that a major reason for the adoption was her 
own safety.

Katie, according to Alyssa, didn't appear to be concerned.

"We're in love."

Steven Pladl's behavior changed after he met Katie, Alyssa Pladl 
said. He began wearing skinny jeans and form-fitting shirts. He 
shaved his beard and let his hair grow long. About six weeks 
after Katie moved in, Steven Pladl one night slept on the floor 
in her room.

It immediately concerned Alyssa. After he did it again the next 
night, she confronted him. He said it was none of her business 
and stormed out of the house with Katie.

Alyssa Pladl finally moved out in November 2016, and she shared 
custody of the two children with Steven Pladl.

In May 2017, she learned from her 11-year-old daughter's journal 
of the incestuous relationship and Katie's pregnancy. Her 
daughter wrote that she and her sister were told by Steven Pladl 
to refer to Katie as their stepmother.

"I started to become hysterical, and I called him," she said. "I 
said, 'Is Katie pregnant with your baby?' He just said, 'I 
thought you knew. We're in love.'

"I started screaming," she said. "I was just cursing him out: 
'How could you? You're sick. She's a child.'"

Then she called the police.

Incest charges

On July 20, 2017, two months after his divorce from Alyssa was 
finalized and amid the police investigation, Steven Pladl 
married Katie in Parkton, Maryland. They lied on their 
application, saying they were unrelated, according to records.

Katie's adoptive parents posed for a photo on the wedding day 
along with Steven, Katie and Steven's mother. Katie wears a 
short black dress.

Tony and Kelly Fusco thought there was nothing they could do and 
had decided it was best to support Katie, Gould said.

Katie gave birth to Bennett on Sept. 1. She and Steven moved to 
a house on a cul-de-sac in Knightdale, North Carolina, just east 
of Raleigh, but wedded bliss did not last long. They were 
arrested on incest charges in January. A judge ordered them to 
not contact each other, and Steven Pladl's mother has custody.

Steven Pladl's lawyer, Rick Friedman II, said there was never an 
allegation that Steven Pladl pressured Katie into a relationship.

"This case is an 18-year-old girl who shows up at the doorstep 
of a 40-year-old man who's going through difficult times with 
his wife," Friedman said. "They have a bond because they're 
biologically related, but they never knew each other before they 
had a sexual relationship. He was head over heels in love with 
her, so much so that that outweighed the issue of them being 
biologically related."

After the arrests, Katie moved back with Tony and Kelly Fusco, 
who declined to comment for this article. Every Tuesday and 
Thursday, she would travel to her adoptive grandmother's home in 
Waterbury, Connecticut, Gould said.

On April 12, a Thursday, Katie and Tony Fusco left the Dover 
home for Waterbury. In a minivan nearby, Steven Pladl watched 
them leave, surveillance video shows.

RELATED: CAUGHT ON CAMERA: Moments before double-murder 
involving Knightdale incest couple

Minutes later in nearby New Milford, witnesses reported someone 
opening fire. Katie and Tony Fusco, 56, were fatally shot. 
Steven Pladl was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot 
back in Dover.

911 call from Steven Pladl's mother

In that 911 call, obtained by WNCN, Steven's mother told the 
dispatcher her son said he had killed the baby.

"He left the baby dead," the caller said. "He told me to call 
the police and I shouldn't go over there."

The caller then said Steven admitted to killing his wife and her 
adoptive father, the station reports.

"His wife broke up with him yesterday over the phone," Steven's 
mother said in a 911 recording. "She's in New York and he told 
me he was on his way and after bringing the baby to her and then 
he was coming back."

"I can't even believe this is happening," Steven's mother told 
authorities, according to a 911 call transcript from which her 
name was redacted. Her son, she said, was upset because Katie, 
by then just 20, had broken up with him.

911 call from witness to double-murder in Connecticut

Police found the baby dead and alone in Katie and Steven's home.

Alyssa Pladl struggles to make sense of it all.

"I'm grieving. I'm sad. I'm upset," she said. "But I also want 
to have something good come out of this. If it's to get truth 
out there, to open people's eyes to incest."

https://www.wbtv.com/story/38017373/new-details-emerge-in-nc-
incest-couple-triple-murder-suicide/
  

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