Phillip Zagarella
This charming fellow entered his boss’ ex-wife’s house at night and killed the ex-wife’s 59-year-old mother while she was babysitting her grandchildren.
After Phillip slit the elderly woman’s throat, he left her in lying on the floor of the garage in a pool of blood, to be discovered at around half past midnight by her daughter.
Phillip Zagarella tried his very best to get the daughter to come into the house, but she ran off, calling police from a neighbor’s house to let them know that a crazy guy with a rifle was in her house with her children and that he’d killed her mother.
50-year-old Phillip Zagarella barricaded himself in the family’s house for about 14 hours while police attempted to negotiate his surrender.
While holing up inside the residence, Mr. Zagarella took the opportunity to sexually assault one of the children.
Police negotiated with Zagarella by telephone for hours and determined he was drunk. A robot was sent towards the residence to try to get inside (what good it would do, I don’t know), but Phillip Zagarella shot at it.
Tear gas was thrown into the house at just before three in the afternoon, followed by a full assault by police.
As they assaulted the house, Zagarella killed himself with his rifle.
Public records show that Phillip Zagarella pleaded guilty to third-degree assault in Nassau County in 1998 and served earlier prison sentences for burglary and assault committed upstate. Zagarella also had a prior conviction for attempted murder.
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What is very grotesque about this crime is that Zagarella knew he planned to kill everyone. The grandmother was looking after a 10-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl. The media attempted to keep their names out of the spotlight (as you noted above) Zagarella sexually assaulted one of the children prior to offing himself. What is so disgusting is that the sexual assault was deliberate. He did this because he knew he wasn’t planning to emerge from this “last-stand” alive. It speaks to a very definite decision-making process in his mind. He obviously had plans to murder his ex and take everyone with him — the ultimate loser making the ultimate decision. His final actions were to be on a grand scale and he would have taken those who he used to control back into his sphere of control before he murdered them. It is the all-or-nothing type of thinking that these abusive assholes do. How dare she escape and make a life without him?
The best thought is to remember him as a fart stain on life’s undershorts.
That works for me.