Daughter called relatives screaming, ‘My dad is dead and my mom killed him!'
Investigators at the scene of a homicide at Roosevelt Avenue in Butler today.
BUTLER — Isabel Mirasola Phillips of Florida answered her phone this morning and received chilling news from her distraught niece in New Jersey.
"My dad is dead and my mom killed him," the 13-year-old wailed.
Phillips said she repeatedly asked her niece, Vanessa Mirasola, to check on her dad, but Vanessa refused. She stayed inside a room in her Butler home in Morris County with her 7-year-old twin siblings, while her father apparently lay lifeless in another, Phillips said.
Mirasola’s mother, Amalia, was later arrested by authorities after police discovered her dead husband in their bedroom, prosecutors said.
Carl Mirasola, 43, was found with multiple gunshot wounds in the couple’s Roosevelt Avenue home, said Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi, who declined to provide any other details of the shooting.
Carl Mirasola (right) died from a fatal gunshot wound Saturday in his Butler home. His wife, Amalia Mirasola, who is wheelchair-bound, has been detained during the investigation into the fatal shooting.Amalia Mirasola, who has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair, was taken into custody after police received a 911 call at 8:06 a.m. and discovered the body, authorities said. The prosecutor declined to say whether Amalia Mirasola, 44, would be charged with her husband’s murder.
"Authorities are seeking any information regarding this incident or anyone with information concerning the family," Bianchi said.
The couple’s children were in the house at the time of the shooting, family members said.
"She wanted me to come and get her," said Phillips, Carl’s sister, of Vanessa’s early morning phone call.
Phillips, who lives near Tampa, Fla., said she was boarding a plane this afternoon to fly to New Jersey. The children were taken to their grandmother’s house in West New York.
Robert Stack, a divorce lawyer representing Amalia Mirasola, said he received a call about Carl Mirasola’s death around 9 a.m. He said his client told him she has no memory of the shooting. He said she also told him she discovered her registered handgun inside her wheelchair and her husband locked inside a bedroom.
Amalia Mirasola, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2004, was planning on filing for divorce, Stack said. The couple fought Friday night after Carl Mirasola learned his wife wanted to end their 19-year marriage, he said.
However, Carl Mirasola’s family disputed the lawyer’s account. Phillips, Carl’s sister, said her brother asked his wife for a divorce months ago and planned to sell their home and move to Florida.
Phillips said her brother, an IT specialist for Pearson Education in Upper Saddle River, was the main caretaker of the pair’s three children.
"He cared about one thing: the image he wanted to portray for his children of an upstanding citizen and father," said Phillips, 45.
Jinx Kastle Mirasola, Carl Mirasola’s stepmother, said the couple, affectionately known as Carly and Amy, were both good people.
"This is just beyond fathomable," Mirasola said. "For us, we just can’t imagine what led this to happen."
Today, neighbors stood on their lawns and front porches exchanging news as police cordoned off half the block with yellow tape to investigate the shooting.
Neighbors said the Mirasola family had lived on Roosevelt Avenue for several years and their house had recently been put up for sale. Amalia Mirasola mostly stayed in her house, neighbors said, adding that they saw the couple’s three children walking to and from the school bus every day.
Residents said they were surprised at yesterday’s events.
"I was just shocked. This is a very nice street," said Grace Robbins, 82, a neighbor who has lived on Roosevelt Avenue for more than 50 years. "You don’t know what goes on behind closed doors."
Staff writers Julie O’Connor and Kelly Heyboer contributed to this report.
Roosevelt Avenue in Butler