Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
A call for help.
911 call .
operator :montgomery county 911.
katie vilardo : there´s blood everywhere and they´re dead. i dont know what happened.
After a savage attack.
John McCarthy: there is literally blood everywhere in this crime scene she is . nearly decapitated
but hwo is responsible?
John McCarthy:this was a who -done- it from the very beginning.
and why?
Darren Francke: because of the overkill maybe there´s some sort of vengeance here.
John McCarthy: we had a killer among us.
911 call.
operator: montgomery 911.
katie vilardo : oh my god .we were on our way back here for mother´s day
operator: fire, she just said she just got home and that both her parents were on the floor and there´s alot of blood and she thinks they ´re both dead.
It´s sunday morning mothet´s day and just minutes before this panicked 911 call katie and andy vilardo are waiting at a picknick area for their parents. dick and jody to celebrate the holiday ,but ther folks are a no-show.
John McCarthy: the children are waiting for their parents at resturant for a pre-arranged mother´s day and they cant eaise them on the phone, have not heard from them, not heard from them since the night before.
concerned the kids rushed to their parents home in the upscale neighborhood of rockville maryland . one insid…..
John McCarthy:there´s a pretty horrific discovery, there is literally blood everywhere in this crime scene.um , on doors,walls ,floors, ceilings .
Within minutes of the 911 call,they follow the blood trail to the backyard.
John McCarthy:her mother is on the floor with multiple catastrophic injuries most notably to her neck, she is nearly decapitated.
And just outside the back patio door ,another grim dicscovery
John McCarthy: the father just a few feet away from his wife he had made his way out the back sliding glass door ,collapsed on back patio and he has multiple injures more than 40 stabbing injuries,they´ve obviously been deceased for some period of time.
Dick and jody vilardo´s last time with their kids was a phone call around 9 :00 pm the night before the couple spent the evening with friends at a nearby casino and returned home sometimes after 11. pm.
but what horrofic events occurred from saturday night to sunday morning.
John McCarthy: this was a who-done- it from the the very beginning,if you look at the crime scene it almost immediately tells you someone attacked this man as he lay in bed an then basically savagely also attacked his wife.
and who wanted to kill dick and jody vilardo , the happily married couple of 40 years built a successful life in the community of rockville and they were actively involved in local scharities
John McCarthy: he was a great guy who obviously had financially been very very successful in his life as his wife had ,he had raise two great kids ,he had a beautiful home. this was a neighborhood where dubble homicides don´t accur.
police search the home. they immediately discover the point of entry a den window ,a screen is cut and lock jimmied.
then a bloody footprints everywhere , it´s a path of desttruction with one notable pattern.
Darren Francke: one of the things we noted right away again an oddity is that the attacker.. we believe the attacker did this without shoes on he had just taken his choes off,not barefooted but in socks.you can see in the impressions of the feet that go through the house. that was were now soaked in blod , you could see that a sock pattern like a crew sock pattern.
Upstairs in the bedroom investigators photographed blood -stained money and empty jewlry boxes.
a clear picture of the attack from start to emerges .
John McCarthy: he was laying in the bed when the attack occured , the attacker left him for dead and the wife who was on the other side of the bed furhest away from the initial attack ran out of the bedroom and into the kitchen area .
where police believe jody vilardo makes a mad dash for the landline phone ,desperate to dial 911.
Darren Francke: we found that it was missing a piece.it looked like it had been either slammed or dropped and then she was the focus of the attack.
and the weapon of choice.
Darren Francke: a serious, serious knife.
that nearly decapitates jody. then a very odd piece of evidence jumps out to detectives there´s a bloddy glove handprint on the frigde. did the killer open it
the detectives wonder if the suspect is familiar with the house then this terrifying possibility
John McCarthy: we had a killer living among us.
The vilardo´s closest neighbors are eve dempster who lived just across the street and the tomaszewski´s family wh o lives right next door. both family have known the valardos for dedades . eve dempster is an elderly woman whos is home at the time of the attacks.
and the tomaszewski family is currently on a cruise in alaska. and the other neigbors living around the vilardos,well they don´t actually strike the cops as prime suspects.
Darren Francke: the neighbors were fantastic they wanted to help with whatever they could , infact one of the nicest things that came out of it , after working a week on s the cases one of the neigbors actually baked this huges tray of cockies .
eve that tomaszewski´s youngest son scott gets word about the murders while on vecation with his family and posted this heartfelt message on face book.
Darren Francke: neighbors were wery worried. to everyone´s knowledge in this neighborhood this could be just someone that burglarize this house ,targeted these people and did t his horrific act and could show up in their houises.
police have their work cut out for them .
John McCarthy: for multiple days in this case ,there really was no solid lead , this was a wide open case this was a red ball,no one really had an as to who was responsible for it .
The valaros had beenat at the nearby casino the night they died.police investigate if there was an connection and they have good reason to believe there might have been one.
Darren Francke:we´re dealing with a rusch robberies of people that had gone to casinos and then been followed from the casino and robbed once they got to their residences,we had initial information that the vilardos had testified in a federal case uhm.. and so that´s alway´s in our minds that , okay, maybe the´re..because of the overkill maybe there´s some sort of vengeance here
and another possible lead pointed to local landsapers
Darren Francke: we had information that there were some woodchuckers in the neighborhood, people that were going around asking neighbors ,” can i cut some trees down on your property” they´re kind of a transient group just move around the neighborhood
both leads are eventually dead ends then cops finally get the break they´ve been waiting for from one of their own.
John McCarthy:a retired police officer who called in and said “hey ,by the way let me tell you about something that happened years ago.
beloved maryland couple dick and jody vilardo are murdered im their upscale neighborhood and now cops get a big break in the case. a tip from one there own , telling them to take a look at the boy next dorr ,brian tomasewski. when brian was a juvenile he burglarized the vilardo´s home . then took one of their cars on a joyride.
John McCarthy:then all of a sudden, you have this golden suspect that´s staring you in the face, he lives right next door, he knows the house ,he is a number one suspect.
but how could brian kill dick and jody the tomaszewskis are all supposed to be on vacation
John McCarthy: brian did not go on the trip to alaska it was just scott ,his mother and father and his older sister.
police interview brian.
Darren Francke:he didn´t provide us anything really substantial
police no longer believe brian is involved, so since the vilardo´s were also burglarized after being killed ,the cops turned their focus to local pawn shops hoping for a hit .and boy do they get one.
Darren Francke: all of a sudden scott showed up as pawning something
that scott is scott tomaszewski,brian´s little brother.
Darren Francke:he pawns a ring beloning to his neghbor.
but not the vilardo´s ,his other neighbor. eve dempsher who lives directly across the street.
the class ring had been reported stolen just a month before the valardo break -in.
Darren Francke:it fits now.it´s starting to fit. wse´re starting to fit the crime to the person.
In fact it´s all captured on pawn shop surveillance cameras , show´s scott tomaszewski pawning the stolen ring.
Darren Francke: all of the sudden we now have probable cause for a burglary. arrest.
but burglary is a a far cry from murder.detectives know the´ll need direct evidence tying scott to the murders and they´re hoping scott packs something extra in his suitcase.detectives know if scott commited the murders it happened sometime between 1 :30 am and the time he left for the cruise. at 3 .am.
Darren Francke:we already knew there was a very very small window he had , if it was scott to commit this crime and he could very well have taken all of the evidence at sea. we knew he was coming into port in juneau,that became the port of call that we were interested in acting on.
and investigators want to make sure that scott isn´t tipped off giving him time to destroy evidence
Darren Francke:you could walk to the edge of the ship and toss of a rolex watch,toss off cash, toss off bloody clothes.we tippped our hand too soon ,it was just another thing that could go wrong that would allow…if there was evidence on that cruise ship that could allow that evidence to escape us.
Plus investigators know scott is in contact with his brother back home . evidenced by this text message from scott while on the cruise ship .
Darren Francke: what we decided to do was a simultaneous search search warrant in juneau as the ship was arriving and on the tomaszesski´s house here.
to ensure they dont´t lose any evidence the search warrants have to be served at exact same moment.
Darren Francke: we sent them out ,we got them on the first flight so we could make sure they got into juneau friday night , because they had the liaison with the coast guard because as the ship coming in ,the other ting, we couldn´t let him get off the ship.
and if they had pulled into dock then we weren´t there to get him in his room,he could i have easily slinked out and again get that alert get whatever it is ,evidence goes with him and then goes in a trash can in juneau.,we never find it. so the the coast guard actually held the ship for us .
yeas ,the coast guard holds the ship at sea.
Darren Francke:when these law enforcement partners get together boundaries go away,espcially when you tell them we´re working this dubble homicide.
John McCarthy:while they were in international waters,we actually figured out where he was, he was not in the u.s territory he was on a boat in international waters.
so the ship is being held up at sea.he can´t get off.so when that ship finally docks what happens in alaska? the FBI ,coast guard ,cops from juneau and detectives from montgomery county stormed the ship i in juneau and handuffed scott. detectivess hit the evidencelottery once inside scotts cabin.
in his wallet they discovered blood soaked cash and in the closet undser his clothes . a knife.and back at the tomaszewski home cops find a little pile of incriminating evidence.
the washing machine turns up plenty of dirt on scott including the ski mask and gloves.
investigators arrest scott on a burglary charge.but they have a strong feeliing they´ll be adding charges of double homicide.police removed scott from the ship in handcuffs and his folks? they got off the ship and went on a tour,yes mom and dad get pff the ship and went on a tour.
while scott´s parents continue their vacation their son meets with detectives back at the montgomery county police departement.scott agrees to talk with investigators without an attorney.his interview is recorded.
scott explains to detectives that he grew up with the vilardo´children. andy and katie but since college the families have drifted apart.
after murdering dick ,scott tells cops he started stabbing jody. then he tells detectives he ditched the knife.as for an actual murders appear to be about as senseless and cold as s scott´s final act in the home just just moments after the murders.
John McCarthy: stop and drink ginger ale, then go out back to his house
Murder is a thirsty buisness for scott accoding to detectives who found blood transfer on the fridge door.and a can of ginger ale. and when they asked scott about it he said.
but while the evidence mounts investigators are missing a huge piece of the puzzle, a second larger knife, they believe was used in the attack.one they believe they´ve seen before in this text message from scott to his ex-girlfriend just days before the murder
it´s a photo of a machete.
the boy next door scott tomaszewski has been arrested for the murders of his longtime neighbors dick and jody vilardo.and police are on the hunt for the murder weapon he used to slaughter them. then cops get a tip about a secret hiding place.
Darren Francke:we learned that there was a backpack secreted back in this closet behind this area.we go back,but it´s not there.
now cops know scott had some help.
Darren Francke:mom took the bag and threw it out
so what was in the bag?
Darren Francke:as near we can tell , it was dicl vilardo´s watches we believe the actual murder weapon was in that bag.
scotts mother faces charges of accesssory after the fact,but she´s offered a plea bargain. instead, mrs tomaszewski wont be charged if she agrees to testify against her own son.
Darren Francke:the evidence we had…because everything fell in line was so overwhelming against scott .she´didn´t have a choice.
scott is charged with two counts of first-degree murder.two count of armed robbery and one count of first -degree burglary.scott pleads guilty , there won´t be trial and his mother will not have to testifiy.
scott tomaszewski receives two consecutive life life sentences.