A Wolf in Suburbia: The Pesce Family Murders Part 1

In 2002 John Wolfenbarger and Dennis Lincoln committed one of the worst crimes in Michigan's history. Five were dead, including three children, just four days before Christmas. 

It was, for the most part, an open-and-shut case but when you add in a dangerous biker gang, a drug-addicted mother, and a questionable parole policy, things can get a little murkier. 

Back in 2014-2015, Nathan began a nearly five-year journey of compiling information on this case for a true crime book. After countless interviews and thousands of documents, he finished the book. Only now, 10 years later, is he sharing everything he learned.

Part one covers chapters one through four. 

Transcript

Chapter 1 - Breaking and Entering

On December 9th, 2002 shortly after 2:00 p.m., 63-year-old Lenore Wedge said goodbye to her husband Ronald as he left for work. An hour later Lenore got ready and set off to start her own work day. Just after 10:00 p.m. that evening, accompanied by her son-in-law Frank Carpenter, Lenore returned to the couple’s two story home on Addison Avenue in Canton, Michigan. Initially neither person noticed anything suspicious although she hadn’t remembered leaving the basement light on.

When she flicked on the light switch in the kitchen that all changed. Every drawer had been pulled out, the contents spilled onto the floor. The doors on her hutch were open and items once displayed proudly on its shelves now lay broken on the floor. As she entered the living room she noticed that a blanket, previously folded on the couch, was now rolled up on the carpet near the door wall. Upon checking the blanket she found four of her husband’s guns, two rifles and two shotguns, rolled up inside.  

At 10:13 p.m.  Frank called the police and informed them that his in-law’s home had been broken into. The 911 operator instructed them to exit the residence immediately and wait outside for police to arrive. Minutes later two Canton police  officers, Duncan and Alestra, arrived at the scene. 

The officers checked the perimeter of the home and noticed that a basement window had been smashed. Around the side of the home they came across a sliding window, it too had been broken open. Upon entering the Wedge home they cleared the basement and first floor as well as the rooms upstairs. All but one room in the home was completely ransacked. The suspects had apparently tried the basement window first but realized they would need another way in. The sliding glass window, which was in the bathroom on the main floor, was their entry point.

As the officers cleared the house, Lenore frantically called her husband and informed him of the robbery. He made it home minutes later. Officer Duncan retrieved the evidence tech equipment and began taking pictures of the exterior of the home as Officer Alestra accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Wedge inside. 

Room by room the couple made note of the things that were missing. Among the countless personal items it was also just two weeks before Christmas and with fourteen grandchildren and great grandchildren there had been plenty of presents ready to be wrapped, those were gone as well. A Playstation 2 with four brand new games, a leather Red Wings jacket, along with a Sony DVD player and MP3 player, all intended to be gifts, were some of the first items Lenore and Ronald made note of. 

Heading upstairs Lenore checked her bedroom and saw that it had been torn apart. Every drawer emptied and thrown to the ground, her closet was destroyed and even the mattress on her bed was slid to the side. The intruders left no stone unturned. Her jewelry box that once contained five different kinds of diamond rings, a 14k gold bracelet, gold and diamond earrings was broken and empty. 

As she searched the bedroom, Ronald was next door in his office praying that they hadn’t checked the filing cabinets. They had. The drawer that once contained his .357 Magnum was empty; even worse, the $6,000 cash he had placed inside after recently collecting rent on his various properties in west Detroit was nowhere to be found. Ronald’s 35mm Minolta camera, the couple’s Sony digital camera and camcorder, dozens of movies and CD’s as well as over two hundred various computer games and programs were all gone.

There was nothing they could do but sign off on the police report, clean up their home and fight off feeling angry, scared, and violated.

Over a month later, on January 14th Ronald drove to the Canton Police Headquarters and nervously approached the front desk. He wanted to make another report of a stolen item, something he had left off the original report on purpose. 

“I never mentioned that along with my .357 I also owned a .380 caliber handgun.”

The officer filled out the supplementary report as Ronald spoke. 

“I never registered the gun and was nervous to tell you about it. It was in the same file cabinet as the .357. I’ve done work on the gun myself, I can identify it for you if need be.” 

A few weeks later he would need to, in front of a packed courtroom at the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice in Downtown Detroit. 

Chapter 2 - Good Times Bad Times

Marco Pesce was born on April 15th, 1964. His future wife and mother to three children, Diane Susan Jameel, was born nearly two years later on January 23rd, 1966. While Diane grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, Marco lived with his family in Italy until following his brother Fabrizio to the United States in 1979.

One year later, in 1980 Marco began his high school career at Thurston High School in Redford, Michigan. Easy going, with a great personality, Marco had no problem adjusting to the American way of life. He had plenty of friends at the school. One of those friends, Michael McIntyre who is now a radio personality, was a year older then Marco but shared classes with him. 

“I knew Marco well. We had a drafting class together and often acted out scenes from ‘The Godfather’ together.” 

McIntyre graduated in 1982, the film, released 10 years prior, had always been one of his favorites and it played into Marco’s Italian heritage. 

“He was very proud of his Italian roots. He always dressed to the tee and could tell you huge stories of his ancestors and generally could B.S. with the best of them. I have fond memories of him.”

McIntyre, who lived in the Livonia and Redford area most of his early life, remembers visiting his friend when he was thinking of popping the question to a girlfriend. 

“If memory serves me well I bought my engagement ring for my first wife from him at a store in Southfield. I think I was at Specs Howard at the time and his place was up on Greenfield somewhere.” 

Specs Howard, a school for radio and television, offered a great outlet for McIntyre’s outgoing personality. Something he shared with Marco. 

“We had swimming class together. I used to laugh because he'd always wear a Speedo. Of course I stopped laughing the day I had to wear his because I lost a bet. He was the first guy I knew who wore sleeveless shirts. He had a macho Rocky Balboa mentality, low on muscles but still wore the clothes.” 

McIntyre likes to think back to a gift Marco once gave him.

“He gave me a black pinstripe, no sleeve shirt that I started wearing because I saw Roger Daltrey of The Who with one in a picture in Rolling Stone magazine. I had hair like Roger back then and fancied myself as his twin. The girls loved it and I begged Marco for it. A couple weeks later he stands up in class, takes it off and walks over and hands it to me. Then he went back and sat down at the drafting table with no shirt, funny stuff!” 

The following year, 1983, Marco graduated from Thurston High School and was offered a job by Haroup Eurdekian the owner of Swiss Jewelry in Southfield. Eurdekian quickly recognized Marco’s skill and passion for the jewelry industry and the young man exceeded all of his expectations.   

Pesce’s long time girlfriend, Diane Jameel, graduated from Thurston High School in 1984. Two years later, in 1986 Pesce became a naturalized U.S. citizen. The pair continued to date until 1989 when Marco asked her to marry him.  They were married in August and bought a house together on Highview Street in Dearborn Heights. Not long after, the family grew by one. In 1990 their first child, a boy they named Carlo, was born. 

The next few years would provide some of the highest highs and lowest lows for Marco and Diane. In 1991 Marco opened Italia Jewelry in Livonia. He quickly stood out as one of the most respected jewelers in an area already crowded with competition. Between his reputation for excellent craftsmanship and memorable television commercials, Italia Jewelry became the place to go for jewelry.   

In 1992 Diane began to struggle with addiction, falling prey to both alcohol and crack cocaine. She would struggle on and off with both for the next decade. In 1993 she was able to kick her habits long enough to give birth to a healthy baby girl named Sabrina. 

As the business continued to grow, so did the Pesce family and with that growth came a newly built two story home in Livonia just minutes from Italia Jewelry. The family of four moved into their new home on St. Martins Street in 1994. Two years later Diane gave birth to their third and final child, a beautiful little girl named Melissa. 

Despite the three children and a successful business, Diane and Marco’s marriage took a turn for the worse in 1997. In January of 1998 Marco hired a lawyer and took Diane to court, filing for divorce. Just days later he was awarded a personal protection order against his wife. In April of that same year the divorce was dismissed and the two reconciled. 

On June 14th, 2000 Marco registered Pesce Properties LLC. Pesce Properties owned the entire ‘7-Farmington Plaza’ which was the strip mall that housed Italia Jewelry. 7 Mile and Farmington was quickly becoming one of the hot intersections in Livonia and he had no problem filling the available vacant slots. Neighboring businesses like ‘The Hair Studio’ and ‘Dog’s Bow Wow’ loved having Pesce as their landlord. Karen Oliver, owner of ‘The Hair Studio’ often cut Pesce’s hair and looked forward to seeing him pull up every day. 

“Stylists and customers knew him as a dapper, savvy entrepreneur with big dreams who loved talking about his children.” 

In September of 2000, Marco once again filed for divorce from Diane. This time Pesce was asking for custody of Carlo, Sabrina and Melissa stating that Diane had become addicted to crack cocaine again. According to reports, Diane was cut off financially after her husband removed her name from all of the various bank accounts.

On a Sunday morning in January of 2001, Livonia Police Officers were dispatched to the Pesce home on St. Martins. 

According to Diane, she’d been lying on the couch in their living room when Marco came downstairs and told her he wanted to talk to her in a different room. He was upset because she hadn’t returned home the previous night until 5:00 a.m..  Their three children were all present in the living room at the time when Diane met her husband at the foot of the stairs. The two began to argue and things turned physical.

By the time police arrived, Diane had a bloody nose and claimed Marco attempted to kick her out of the house. While she was putting her shoes on, but refusing to leave, he grabbed one of her shoes and threw it out into the garage. Marco explained to the officers that his wife had a crack cocaine addiction and believed she had paraphernalia in both the house and her car. He gave them permission to search anywhere they wanted to. 

One of the officers searched her car and quickly found a package of Chore Boy along with a small plastic bag containing cocaine residue. Chore Boy, in the drug community is used by taking a small wad of the copper wool and inserting it into the end of a short cylindrical glass tube, the copper wool then serves as a screen to place the drug upon.  

Another officer asked for permission to search her leather jacket and when he did he found a paper towel blotted with lipstick as well as a broken crack pipe. Diane was placed under arrest for the possession of paraphernalia, handcuffed and taken to the Livonia Police Department. Marco followed the squad car to the station while the children stayed with their grandmother, Marco’s mother Maria Vergati. 

While she awaited her sentencing Marco continued to split time between his duties as a parent, business owner and landlord. On March 20th Marco attended the monthly Livonia City Planning Commission meeting in hopes of bettering his strip mall. With the Commission’s approval, Marco hoped to expand the shopping center to the east and then rename the expanded center to ‘Millennium Plaza’.  Eventually the Commission would agree to the changes, knowing full well that Pesce only wanted to beautify and add to the community he had fallen in love with.   

Eight days later, Marco had the divorce dismissed as the pair once again reconciled. On May 21st, 2001 Diane made her way to the 16th District Court in Livonia to face her sentencing for the January arrest. The judge sentenced Diane to 10 days in prison to be followed by 12 months of probation and unspecified rehab. It was around this time that Diane met a man named Allen Carnes. The two began using drugs together and later, sometime in August, Diane would admit to Marco that she had become intimate with Mr. Carnes. 

Five months later, on October 9th, Marco filed for divorce a third and final time.  On the 15th he was awarded another restraining order on his soon to be ex-wife. In January of 2002 Marco was granted temporary custody of the children and Diane moved out. On April 15th, a Wayne County judge granted the divorce and awarded joint legal custody to both parents. The only condition being that all three kids were to live with Marco until the age of eighteen. Considering the circumstances, Diane Pesce’s lawyer Harvey Hauer was quoted as saying, “As far as divorces go, this was far from the worst”. 

When asked about the relationship between Marco and Diane, Diane’s father Samuel Jameel replied, “They may have fought occasionally, but the disagreements were minor.” According to Samuel, he didn’t know about the drug use but knew his daughter had problems with depression and may have had a breakdown.

As far as Marco’s brother Fabrizio was concerned, his family had not been close with Diane in recent years.  

“During the early years we were just like any other regular family, and then later she just… we would invite them over but she wouldn’t show up or sometimes came late. Most of the time she had something going on, problems, whatever it is, so we stopped personally inviting her… but they were always welcome.” 

On September 25th of 2002 Diane was court ordered to check in to the Home of New Vision rehab facilities in Ann Arbor. Three weeks before Thanksgiving, Marco, who knew he would need help with his children over the holidays, flew his mother Maria Vergati back to the United States on a three month visa. She stayed in the basement guest room of the St. Martins’ home with Marco and her grandchildren offering her son a chance to put in the hours he needed to make it through the busy Christmas season at Italia Jewelry. 

While in rehab, Diane had limited contact with her family. She was allowed two phone calls a week, with the children only; as well as visitation on Saturdays. To arrange her children’s visits she called her sister Olga who would then call Marco.  She was not allowed to speak with Marco himself until at least 60 days had passed. The two did write letters back and forth occasionally, Diane with the hopes of someday getting back together with her now ex-husband. 

In order for her to go somewhere with her children during their visits she needed to put in a request two weeks prior and find two other women from the program to accompany her. She arranged such an outing for December 21st, 2002. 

Around noon on the 21st Marco left work and drove Carlo, Sabrina and Melissa to Ann Arbor to visit their mother. After dropping the kids off with Diane, Marco returned to Italia Jewelry, instructing Carlo to call him when they were ready to come home. Diane, her three kids and two other women went to the Quality 16 theaters in Ann Arbor and enjoyed a showing of ‘The Wild Thornberrys’. From there they took a bus back home, ordered pizza and talked. 

At 4:30 p.m. Carlo called his Father and told him they were ready, he arrived in Ann Arbor shortly after five. As the children jumped into the Yukon Denali, Diane approached the driver’s side door and talked to Marco.

“I just wish I could be home for Christmas with all of you.”

“Honey, this is where you need to be. Just know that we are all waiting for you.” Marco replied. 

She waved goodbye to her children, not realizing it would be the last time she would see any of them alive. 

Chapter 3 - The Christmas Party

On Saturday, December 21st Fabrizio Pesce, Marco’s brother, woke up early and got ready to head over to the home of his father, Rocco. Over the previous couple of weekends Fabrizio had been making time in his busy schedule to help his dad with repairs around the house. Knowing that he needed to be at a Christmas party that night in Northville he left his father and returned home around 6:00 p.m..

Upon arriving at his family’s home in Dearborn Heights he instructed his twelve-year-old son Stefano to call the boy’s cousin Carlo and let him know the plan for the evening. Fabrizio, his wife Rosemary and Stefano were planning on picking up Marco’s three children in Livonia at 6:45pm to take them to the Christmas party. Marco was to meet them at the party after closing up Italia Jewelry for the night. 

Unbeknownst to Fabrizio, his son had actually called Carlo shortly before 6:00 p.m. and it had been a strange call. The cousins and best friends normally spent a great deal of time talking to each other, this conversation, however, was cut short. When Stefano called, six-year-old Melissa answered. 

“Melissa, it's Stefano, let me talk to Carlo.” The young girl went and got her brother who came to the phone quickly. 

“I’m doing something important right now,” Carlo said. He sounded off somehow to Stefano, he sounded nervous. 

“Fine, I’ll call back later.”

At 6:08 p.m., under the instruction of his father, Stefano dialed his cousin’s number once again. This time Carlo answered with a ‘hello’. 

“Can you talk now?” Stefano asked.

“No,” Carlo replied.

“Why not?”

“I’ll explain later.”

Before Carlo could hang up, Stefano mentioned that he and his parents would be arriving before 7:00 p.m. to pick them up. He thought he heard someone in the background tell Carlo to get off the phone but he wasn’t sure and he never mentioned it to his parents. 

“Yeah, okay,” were the last words Stefano heard his cousin speak.

Fabrizio along with his wife and son left their home around 6:15 p.m., arriving at the home of his brother on St. Martins at 6:45 p.m.. Over the course of their travels Stefano tried to call his cousin two more times using his father’s cell phone. Both of the calls went unanswered, sending him to voicemail.   

Fabrizio pulled into Marco’s driveway, stopping near the walkway that led to the front door. From where he sat he could see Marco’s white Yukon Denali parked ahead of him. He could also see that the larger of the two garage doors open. Typically at this point his nieces and nephew would come bounding out of one of the doors. They usually watched for their uncle to pull into the driveway. This time, however, no one came. Fabrizio asked Stefano to hop out of the car and go get them.  

Stefano ran up the walkway towards the front door. He knocked repeatedly, noticing that the light in the kitchen was on. Frustrated that no one was answering, Stefano ran around to the western side of the house and entered the garage. Once again he knocked on the door, this time attempting to open the door, it was locked. He then ran back out to his waiting parents. 

“Nobody’s answering,” he told his parents. 

At this point they were already running late. 

“Just go in the back of the house,” Fabrizio ordered. 

Stefano ran around to the back of the house and started knocking on the sliding glass doors. The blinds on the door were open and Stefano thought he could see someone sitting on the couch, it looked like his grandma. The twelve year old, with his young legs, then ran back to his parents.

“Nobody’s answering still.”

“Open the door.” 

“I tried; I think I saw someone sleeping on the couch.” Stefano also had heard his cousin’s three Chihuahuas barking. 

Aside from knowing that his mother had hearing problems, Fabrizio thought it was all a little unusual. They were running late though and Stefano had been knocking on various doors for almost 15 minutes. Fabrizio asked his son to get back in the car and the three of them left for the party. On their way Fabrizio asked Stefano to call, using his cell phone, and leave a message. He dialed their number once again.

“Hey guys, if you hear the phone or see the message call my dad’s cell phone and my mom will come pick you up.”

Shortly after 7:00pm they arrived at the Northville home of family friend Marty Testasecca. When asked later about his thoughts on leaving Marco’s home, Fabrizio mentioned the weird feeling he left with.

“We were concerned something wasn’t right. It was this creepy, still picture in the house, and I guess the brain somehow was telling me five people in the house, Marco’s here, nobody answers, something was telling me it was unusual.”

At the Christmas party, around 10:00 p.m. Fabrizio’s wife Rosemary approached him. 

“Something’s wrong, I’m worried about them, something’s not right.”

Fabrizio, who was worried himself, tried to comfort his wife. 

“Don’t worry, you know Marco. The week before we were supposed to pick them up for another party and Carlo got in trouble somehow so Marco didn’t let him go, maybe they were doing the same thing.”

Early the next morning, around 8:00 a.m., Fabrizio woke up and tried his brother’s phone a few more times. As he got ready to leave for his father’s house he decided to call his Aunt Susie. 

“Marco’s not answering my phone calls. Would you send someone there or try to call.”

Waiting anxiously by the phone, Susie finally called back. 

“I can’t get anybody; I’m going to send someone there.”

Shortly after 11:00 a.m. Fabrizio arrived at his father’s house. From the moment he entered the home he knew something was wrong. Rocco was pulling on his jacket and Fabrizio noticed that his dad looked very pale. 

“Something is wrong at Marco’s house.” 

They both got into Fabrizio’s car and drove quickly to Marco’s home on St. Martins. As they drove down the dead end street they saw the police cars and an officer taping off the property. They were asked to enter one of the squad cars and were informed that five people had been murdered inside the home. 

Chapter 4 - Finding the Family

Police officer James Barron was the first to respond when a call came over the radio.  The voice on the other end, Livonia Police Department Sergeant Ambers, instructed nearby units to conduct a welfare check at a home on St. Martins Street. Set in the more affluent northwest corner of Livonia, St. Martin’s was lined with newly built single family homes.

Officer Barron arrived at the address at 11:40 a.m., Sunday December 22nd and noticed a person standing near a blue Ford Explorer at the end of the long driveway. The man identified himself as Marcus, stating he was the husband of a first cousin to the homeowner, Marco Pesce, and that his wife had been the one to make the call. The family was worried. Barron noticed the open two car garage door, as he asked the man what he knew.

“Marco’s brother was supposed to have picked up his children last night around 6:30 p.m. to bring them to a Christmas party. He found the house like this, garage open, lights on; but no one answered when he knocked.”

At that point a second squad car pulled up to the home and Officer Patrick McGrath joined the conversation. Marcus explained that he had arrived about ten minutes prior at the urging of his wife and attempted to knock, still receiving no answer. He went on to say that Mr. Pesce’s three children; two girls and one boy, lived at the residence as did Pesce’s mother who was visiting from Italy during the holidays.

Together Barron and McGrath approached the white GMC Yukon Denali parked facing north in the driveway near the open garage. When asked, Marcus confirmed that it belonged to Mr. Pesce. The officers checked the interior of the vehicle, noted that it was empty and that it appeared to be unlocked. This was surprising to Marcus.

“He never leaves his car unlocked.”

Officer Barron took another look at the front of the two story brick home. He noticed an upstairs bedroom light on and could also see that the television was on through a first floor window. Barron then checked the two cars inside the garage, a black Mercedes and a dark colored Isuzu Axiom, both empty. From there the officers walked back across the front of the house and up the east side of the home, checking doors and windows along the way. Everything was locked tight. As they got to the back of the house, they finally saw someone inside.

Looking through a living room window both officers could see what looked like an elderly woman sitting on a tan leather sofa, slouched to one side. Barron banged loudly on the window as McGrath called Marcus over. The woman, whom Marcus confirmed to be Maria Vergati, Pesce’s mother, neither moved nor responded to the officers shouting and knocking. After asking Marcus to wait by his car, Officer Barron radioed the Livonia Fire Department. Officer McGrath attempted to make entry into the home by kicking down the service door in the garage but was unsuccessful.

At approximately 11:55 a.m. a rescue unit from Station 3, less than two miles away arrived at the scene and was instructed to break open the service door. After doing so, they were asked to stay in the garage until it was deemed safe. At 11:57 a.m. Officers Barron and McGrath entered the home. 

The officers cautiously made their way down a hallway, passing the laundry room on the left. At the end of the hallway they came to the kitchen. From there McGrath checked on Ms. Vergati while Barron secured the remainder of the main floor. Grabbing her by the wrist, McGrath checked for a pulse; her arm was rigid and heavy. Although at the time he didn’t see any visible wounds, he knew that Mr. Pesce’s mother was deceased.

“She’s dead,” he called out to the other officer. 

As Barron heard the news from McGrath he flicked on a light near the basement stairs. The light revealed more bad news. At the foot of the stairs he could see what looked like more bodies lying on the floor. The bodies in the basement coupled with the fact that McGrath hadn’t noticed any wounds on Ms. Vergati made Officer Barron think that carbon monoxide poisoning could be the culprit. He quickly ran to the front door, unlocking it and propping open the storm door for ventilation. As he made his way back to the stairwell he called in to dispatch to report the additional bodies and their intent to clear the basement. 

Officer McGrath took the lead on the stairway as the two descended slowly. The first body they came across was that of an adult male wearing a black coat, black dress slacks and black shoes. He was lying face down with a single gunshot wound between his shoulder blades. To the south of the adult male was a young boy. A young female was to the boy’s northeast and finally an even younger girl lay to her north. The bodies together formed a semi circular shape and each had a single gunshot wound between their shoulder blades. 

As McGrath checked for signs of life, knowing full well that there would be none, Barron performed a sweep search on the rest of the basement. It wasn’t long before he noticed damaged doors, revealing a storage room. On the floor of the room he saw a safe. 

The officers ascended the stairs and took another stairway to the upper portion of the house. They first entered the master bedroom and saw that the dressers and closet had been completely ransacked. The children’s rooms had been gone through but to a lesser extent.

At that time, a third officer entered the St. Martins Street home.

“Police!” called out Sgt. Steve Smith. 

“Up here,” replied Barron and McGrath. 

Smith joined the two officers as they finished their sweep of the upstairs portion of the house. After being informed of their findings Sgt. Smith instructed Officer McGrath to stand guard at the door in the garage and asked Officer Barron to tape off the perimeter of the property. Smith then accompanied one paramedic, as to not further contaminate the crime scene, back into the house to do an official check on the bodies. 

After taping off the property, Barron approached Marcus who was still waiting near his car. 

“All the relatives were worried, that’s why I came.”

Marcus informed the officer that Mr. Pesce had a wife who had been in and out of the home during their divorce proceedings. 

“Do you know her name?” asked Barron, but Marcus couldn’t remember. He was obviously rattled and becoming more emotional by the second. His next question caught the officer off guard.

“Do you think this was a murder suicide?” 

“Why would you think that?”

“Marco has been depressed lately and upset with his wife.”

Officer Barron asked Marcus for a written statement, which he began but then stated he was too upset to continue writing. Barron respectfully ended his questioning.

It was now afternoon, gloomy clouds hung low over the city and the day was as warm as it would get at thirty three degrees. Michigan winters were almost always unpleasant; this one so far however, had been a bit warmer with more rain falling than snow. 

As Sgt. Smith finished up inside with the paramedic, Sgt. Thomas Goralski and Lt. Ben McDermott of the Detective Bureau arrived along with members of the Identification Bureau. Also new to the crime scene was Officer Dan Tar, who was quickly positioned on St. Martins Street, east of the house. He would serve as a checkpoint for any cars coming from Newburgh Road. 

It wasn’t long after when a black Pontiac pulled onto St. Martins heading towards the house. Inside the car were two females, Anita Douglas and Kim Jackman, both claiming to be employees of Mr. Pesce and wondering what was happening. Officer Tar quickly radioed to Sgt. Smith to come speak with them. The women explained that the day before at around 6:00 p.m., their boss, Marco Pesce, had received a phone call from his son. Marco told Jackman and Douglas that he had to leave because one of his daughters had fallen and knocked out a tooth. In a hurry, Marco left and then never returned.  

Douglas, who had been a longtime friend and occasional employee along with Jackman, who had only started working for the store days earlier, did their best to lock up but stated they were unable to set the alarm. When they arrived at work that morning, Marco was not there as he normally was to open the store. They waited for him, became nervous and drove right over. Without hesitation, Sgt. Smith dispatched a car to Marco Pesce’s store, Italia Jewelry, less than five minutes away.

Family members began to show up in droves, each one stopped and quickly interviewed by Officer Tar. They all left phone numbers where they could be reached and informed him that they would be assembling as a family nearby. As soon as the officers knew anything, they wanted to be notified. 

It was now after 3:00 p.m. and most of the first responders were relieved save for Sgt. Smith who had been asked by Lt. McDermott to stick around. Officers Barron, McGrath and Tar all made their way back to the Livonia Police Department Headquarters to fill out their reports as Officers Higgins, Christie, Gibbs and Johnston filled in their spots at the garage entry, driveway and street respectively.    

As evening rolled in, around 5:30 p.m., Sergeants Bremenour and Siterlet from the Identification Bureau along with Officer Scott entered the home and began to photograph the interior. Bremenour sketched out the rooms on the main floor as the other two dusted for fingerprints finding latent’s on both a hallway closet door and bathroom door handle.

The living room, including the body of Ms. Vergati was examined and processed. They photographed the entry wound in her upper left chest as well as the exit wound in her lower left back, recovering the bullet from her clothing just outside the exit wound. Beside her on the couch sat a pillow with a bullet hole through it. They quickly surmised that the gunmen had stood above her and held the pillow to her chest to muffle the gunshot. 

Around 7:00 p.m. the crew made their way downstairs with Sgt. Siterlet in charge of collecting evidence, Sgt. Bremenour measuring and sketching and Officer Scott collecting prints. 

Hairs and fibers were collected from the backsides of the four bodies. Entry and exit wounds were photographed, each victim taking a single gunshot wound in the back with the bullet exiting their chests. They located the spent rounds underneath three of the victims. The fourth victim, they figured, had been able to crawl after being shot. That round was almost a foot away from the body. 

Pieces of the broken storage door were collected for evidence, one of which had a prominent boot print left behind. The portion of the broken door containing a knob or handle could not be located. The safe inside the room, which was under the stairs, measured out to be thirty two inches deep, twenty five inches wide and over two feet tall. They found that the safe was closed, but not locked. Upon opening the safe, they found nothing; it had been emptied of whatever contents were inside.

Close to midnight Sgt. Siterlet took fingerprints of the deceased, not long after investigators from the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office arrived to remove the bodies. They were gone by 1:30 a.m.. After collecting more evidence and fingerprints, Sergeants Bremenour and Siterlet finally left the scene; it was after 5:00 a.m.. By noon the next day they were back to work, examining and processing the master bedroom and children’s rooms upstairs. At 2:45 p.m. Sgt. Bremenour returned to headquarters to submit the latent prints to the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), the prints turned up negative, unidentifiable. 

The killer or killers had a two day head start on the Livonia police and after their thorough work at the house on St. Martin’s Street they had little to go on. They needed suspects, leads, something... and they needed it fast.     

Local and eventually national news organizations picked up on the story quickly. Mass murder in one the ‘safest cities in America’ was all over the television and newspapers across the globe. The city of Livonia was reeling and on edge. 

Marco Pesce, 38; Maria Vergati, 68; Carlo Pesce, 12; Sabrina Pesce, 9 and Melissa Pesce, 6 had all been shot in cold blood just four days before Christmas. 

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