New details emerge in NC incest couple triple murder-suicide

[Nancy Pelosi Fake Insurrection]

(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.

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"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.

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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/