Lawyer: Knightdale man gave no hint of potential murder-suicide

The man suspected of killing a 7-month-old baby in Knightdale and then gunning down the child's mother and her adoptive father in Connecticut on Thursday gave no hint of his plans in recent days, his lawyer said Friday.

Police in New Milford, Conn., said Steven Walter Pladl pulled his minivan up next to another vehicle occupied by Katie Rose Pladl, 20, and Anthony Fusco, 56, and fired multiple rounds from an AR-15 style rifle, hitting both victims in the head and chest.

"The car pulled up, went around him and shot him – pulled quick, quick pull right into his head," a man told a 911 dispatcher in Connecticut. "It was definitely an out-of-state plate heading towards Milford. I think it was North Carolina [plate]. He went around. We were pulling up to the stop sign. He shot two people. There are two people deceased."

Police said Steven Pladl, 43, then shot and killed himself about 5 miles away in Dover, N.Y.

Katie Pladl was Steven Pladl's biological daughter and the mother of his infant son, police said.

The shootings occurred roughly the same time as police in Knightdale found the infant, Bennett Pladl, dead inside the home where Steven Pladl lived. No one else was home at the time.

Police conducted a well-being check at 106 Earlston Court after Steven Pladl's mother called 911 to say that her son told her he had killed the baby, Katie Pladl and Fusco.

"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]."

Knightdale police haven't disclosed the cause of the baby's death, but Police Chief Lawrence Capps said in a Facebook post Friday that "the child did not sustain any noticeable injuries or trauma."

Steven and Katie Pladl were arrested in January on warrants out of Virginia charging them with incest, adultery and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Katie Pladl had been given up for adoption at birth, but she reconnected through social media with her birth parents two years ago and moved into their home near Richmond, Va. She and Steven Pladl then began a sexual relationship, and after Steven Pladl and his wife divorced, he and Katie Pladl married and moved to Knightdale.

Case 'unlikely to go to trial

Lawyer Rick Friedman, who has been representing Steven Pladl for about 18 months, said Friday that Pladl called him a week ago to ask what he should wear to court. Pladl didn't give any indication he would harm anyone, Friedman said.

The lawyer called the case unprecedented, saying it was so unusual and sad that even prosecutors weren't sure what to do with it.

"It is very unlikely this case was going to trial," Friedman said. "Deciding how to punish someone for this case is difficult. How do you punish a biological parent? By putting that parent in jail, and keeping that parent away from the child?"

All parties were working to strike a deal that would best serve the family, he said.

The incest charges could have put both Steven and Katie Pladl in prison for up to 10 years.

Alyssa Pladl, Steven Pladl's ex-wife and Katie's biological mother, told the British tabloid The Daily Mail earlier this year that she wanted her former husband to spend time behind bars, but she wanted Katie to undergo therapy and rebuild her life.

She said she learned of her husband and daughter's incestuous relationship by reading her 11-year-old's diary.

"I lost it. I started screaming. I felt like I was going to throw up," she told The Daily Mail.

Alyssa Pladl no longer lives at the home near Richmond where the relationship started, and she told WRAL News by phone Friday that she doesn't want to discuss Thursday's shootings.

Friedman said Steven Pladl didn't see Katie as his daughter – they were strangers for 18 years – and he disputed the claim by Alyssa Pladl that her daughter had been brainwashed, calling Steven and Katie Pladl's relationship consensual.

"I don't have any indication that anything was going on except for two adults who chose to be in a relationship together," Friedman said. "The fact that they were biologically related never really appeared to be an issue to them."

Deaths confirmed in 911 calls

After the January arrests, Katie Pladl moved back to Connecticut to live with her adoptive parents because the courts had ordered the couple to stay away from each other until the criminal case was resolved. The baby was put in the custody of Steven Pladl's mother, Gracie Pladl, in Cary.

On Wednesday night, police said, Steven Pladl asked his mother if he could take the child back to his home in Knightdale, saying mother he and the baby were going to Skype with Katie Pladl that evening.

Shortly before midnight, Steven Pladl spoke with his mother by telephone and told her he was taking the baby to see Katie Pladl in New York, police said. At about 7 a.m., they spoke again on the phone, and he told her he and the baby were in New York. In a final phone call at 8:45 a.m., he told his mother about the shootings and the baby's death, police said.

In her 911 call, Steven Pladl's mother told the dispatcher that Katie Pladl had broken up with her son over the phone on Wednesday.

"He is dead by now. He said he was taking his own life when he got off the phone in New York," she told a second dispatcher.

"I pleaded with him not to go," she continued. "He said he was on his way to give [the baby] because she was splitting up with him, and that’s where I thought he was, and then he called me this morning and said they were all gone – he had shot [them]. He's up in New York, and he said he’s next. He was going to kill himself, that he couldn’t live without her."

"We may never understand the mindset or motives of Steven Pladl, but we do know his actions have shattered the lives of countless people," Capps, the Knightdale police chief, said in a Facebook post. "We pray the families affected find some measure of comfort and peace as they work to cope with senseless tragedy."

Neighbors shocked by outcome

Gracie Pladl's neighbor, who did not want to be identified, said the news came as a shock to many of the people in the area.

"My heart just goes out to the family. It's just sad," she said.

The neighbor said she would see Pladl every now and again with the baby.

"I saw a car seat and stuff like that," she said.

The neighbor said she wishes she could help Gracie Pladl through her pain.

"I'm very sorry for the pain that she's in and I hope everything is OK. My heart goes out to her," she said.