Dead baby in Knightdale linked to incest, murder-suicide in Connecticut, NY

Police conducting a well-being check at a home at 106 Earlston Court found the body of 7-month-old Bennett Pladl at about 9 a.m. No one else was home at the time.

Knightdale Police Chief Lawrence Capps said the infant’s death is being treated as a homicide, and he confirmed it was related to crimes that occurred in New Milford, Conn., and Dover, N.Y., on Thursday.

Authorities in New Milford said a double homicide occurred there Thursday morning, and troopers from the New York State Police confirmed that a suicide in Dover was linked to both the Knightdale and New Milford homicides.

"Events like this are not common in our community. Unfortunately, they are not uncommon in society," Capps said at a news conference. "We are heartbroken, saddened over the death of this child, and like you, we are trying to make sense of all of the factors that led up to this senseless taking of life."

He confirmed that the crimes involved Steven Walter Pladl, 43, and Katie Rose Pladl, 20, who lived in the Knightdale house in January when they were arrested on warrants out of Virginia charging them with incest, adultery and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The father and daughter had a sexual relationship, and she had a baby last September.

Katie Pladl had been given up for adoption at birth and lived in Connecticut, but she found her biological parents through social media in 2016 and moved into their home in Virginia, according to authorities.

Steven Pladl and his wife then separated, and he and Katie Pladl moved to Knightdale last year, renting the house on Earlston Court.

After they were arrested in January, Katie Pladl moved back to Connecticut with her adoptive parents. Steven Pladl continued to live in the Earlston Court house, Capps said, and the baby was in the custody of Steven Pladl's mother.

Police aren't releasing the cause of the baby's death, but Capps said he was alive as of Wednesday evening, when Steven Pladl stopped by his mother's home in Cary to pick the boy up.

A couple of neighbors on Earlston Court said they rarely saw Steven Pladl, and nobody noticed anything wrong Wednesday night.

Steven Pladl's mother was so concerned by an exchange she had on the phone with her son early Thursday that she called Knightdale police to request the well-being check, Capps said.

According to a 911 call Steven Pladl's mother made Thursday morning, Katie Pladl broke off her relationship with Steven Pladl over the phone on Wednesday, and he planned to take the child to her in New York.

Somewhere along the way, those plans changed.

"He said he killed his wife, he killed her father," the sobbing woman told a 911 dispatcher. "I can't even believe this is happening.

"He said he left the baby dead," she said. "He told me to call police, not to go over there [myself]."

According to NBC Connecticut, New Milford police received reports of gunshots at 8:40 a.m. and responded to an intersection near the Connecticut-New York state line, where they found a man and a woman dead in a pickup.

New York State Police said New Milford police alerted area law enforcement to be on the lookout for a light blue minivan with North Carolina plates. A vehicle matching that description was spotted in Dover, and when authorities converged on the minivan, which was parked with the engine running, they found a man dead inside, according to NBC Connecticut.

The chief identified the man killed in the pickup as Katie Pladl's adoptive father, 56-year-old Anthony Fusco.