Oct. 7, 2026
Another Shocking Familicide: NJ Insurance Executive Kills Wife And Daughter, Then Himself
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RSS Feed New Jersey police made a horrific discovery inside a multimillion dollar mansion: three members of the same family, all fatally shot. But police now believe it was the father, 61-year-old insurance executive David Grodnick who shot and killed his 62-year-old wife, Lora and their 24-year-old daughter, Sloane before turning the gun on himself. We discuss the details of this case, one that follows a disturbing trend this year, where seemingly successful, educated men murder their entire families before killing themselves, with little to no explanation.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey there folks, it is Wednesday, October 7th. And why, why do men keep killing their entire families and then killing themselves? Yes, folks, another case of familicide. It's happened again, and this time in New Jersey. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Robes. It's been, it's weird to say, it's been a few weeks since we've done one of these. But Rose, we were doing them every single month, sometimes more than one a month, sometimes more than one a week. of these stories. They're just shocking every time, but they seem, don't they, Robes, to follow a similar pattern.
00:00:39
Speaker 2: Yes, they all follow a similar eerie pattern where you see seemingly successful men who have money, who have what looks like a perfect family from the outside looking in, shocking their friends, their family, their communities by killing their entire families and then themselves. And we've just seen an epidemic of these cases, specifically this year.
00:01:08
Speaker 3: It's really disturbing.
00:01:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, and anybody familiar who's spent some time with us, and we have regular listeners here, we were doing a lot of these this summer, especially, Robes, to the point we stopped and did a full examination in a couple of episodes of this phenomenon now, really, familicide. Robes, I didn't think we'd be using the word that much.
00:01:30
Speaker 2: No.
00:01:30
Speaker 1: But it's been a lot this summer, and it seems weird to think that, wow, we haven't covered one of these in a while. Well, we shouldn't have.
00:01:37
Speaker 2: No.
00:01:37
Speaker 1: We shouldn't be covering these as regularly as we are, but it was almost a surprise to me. You brought those into my attention today, and I... Oh, well, yeah. We haven't had one in a while.
00:01:45
Speaker 2: We haven't, and it's sad that we have any to report, period. But this one actually is close to New York City. This is just outside of Princeton, New Jersey, to give folks an idea of where in the world we're talking about.
00:01:59
Speaker 3: Specifically, a town called Skillman, New Jersey.
00:02:02
Speaker 2: This is a well-off town in between Philadelphia and New York City.
00:02:09
Speaker 3: And the father, who has been now.
00:02:13
Speaker 2: I say accused, it sounds strange because he's dead, but police say that he killed his wife, his daughter, and then himself. He was a highly successful insurance executive. There is no known motive, and we'll tell you what we do know. This is just head-scratching. 61 years old, David Grodnick. He had his doctorate from Quinnipiac University School of Law, senior vice president at and the underwriting counsel with Land Services USA. What could be so terribly wrong?
00:02:47
Speaker 1: I mean, just, Robes, we never know. And it doesn't make anything less tragic if the family had however amount in their bank account. These do, Robes, as a part of these, have been striking and shocking. That you see people, everybody's got something going on in their lives, but Robes, we go from people who appear to have... Everything. Enviable lives. Yes.
00:03:13
Speaker 2: And the pictures of this home are everywhere just outside of Princeton. Gorgeous $ 2 million, 6,000 square foot home. His wife, 62-year-old Laura Grodnick. I just looked up her Instagram. You know how some people have quotes that they'll have basically that say who they are on their Instagram page.
00:03:34
Speaker 3: You can have a bio. You can have a quote.
00:03:37
Speaker 2: Her quote is, Carpe diem. Princeton to Palm Beach to Sea Island. Look, it sounds like they may have had homes in those places or they frequent in those places. They were snowbirds maybe.
00:03:49
Speaker 3: Again, an enviable life.
00:03:51
Speaker 2: Someone who can just say, yeah, I go back and forth between Princeton, Palm Beach, Florida, and Sea Island, Georgia. Who wants to raise their hand and live that life?
00:04:01
Speaker 3: Just about everybody.
00:04:02
Speaker 2: And then 24-year-old Sloane Grodnick.
00:04:06
Speaker 3: This is where I really... just get confused.
00:04:09
Speaker 2: She was a graduate of the Hun School in Princeton. It's an exclusive boarding school. She was set to complete her master's degree at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2027. She had her entire life ahead of her, and she was living with her parents.
00:04:25
Speaker 3: I thought this was interesting.
00:04:26
Speaker 2: Public records show that in September, so just a few weeks ago, the home ownership was transferred to from mom and dad, David and Laura, to Sloan in a trust. So it was almost as if they were preparing for her future and putting the home and her name under a trust.
00:04:45
Speaker 1: Hell of a coincidence, though. Why? Why?
00:04:48
Speaker 3: How did this happen?
00:04:59
Speaker 1: That's bizarre. If it plays into it at all, who knows? But that's a hell of a coincidence, Rosalie. We have talked in a lot of these stories, there is a shift, a dynamic change. Oftentimes, it's somebody losing a job, something like some change in that family dynamic. That doesn't seem to rise to the level of some of the other things we've been talking about, but still, it's worth noting.
00:05:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, it certainly is. Also worth noting....
00:05:23
Speaker 2: Some of the local reporting there, the Montgomery News, which is a local paper there, reported that the couple, they were just trying to find out anything. Everyone's looking for the why. There's no report that he had lost his job. There's no report that there was an affair. There's no report that anything was going on in their lives other than they had been the plaintiffs in multiple lawsuits. So they were plaintiffs in multiple class action lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson, Capital One.
00:05:51
Speaker 3: Discovered. They had multiple.
00:05:53
Speaker 2: Personal lawsuits over the last five years, including breach of contract, rental disputes, construction liens. Look, they may have had homes in all of these places, and maybe this was just coincidental. And maybe because he's a lawyer, he knew he could be litigious if he wanted to be.
00:06:08
Speaker 1: I think, who knows what all that means, but I guess given his line of work, it makes more sense, given that he deals in real estate, given that he deals like his own homes, but he also deals in insurance. Like there's a lot of, he deals in legal stuff all the time. I don't know how bizarre or how that, but I would have felt different if you told me they were the defendants in all these.
00:06:32
Speaker 3: Yes, they were the plaintiffs.
00:06:34
Speaker 2: But just to give you a tick tock of how this all happened and how police were even made aware of this, 3 p.m. last Thursday, the police there received a call, basically a wellness check. Obviously somebody didn't show up to work. Somebody didn't show up to class. And so eventually police were called to try and figure out what was going on.
00:06:55
Speaker 3: They couldn't get in contact with any family members.
00:06:58
Speaker 2: And eventually around 6 p.m. the next day, so this was Friday, October 1st, officers forced their way into the home. And that is where they found Laura and Sloan, each dead from gunshot wounds to the head in separate bedrooms.
00:07:16
Speaker 3: Look, oftentimes.
00:07:18
Speaker 2: We have seen these cases, and again, you mentioned, babe, at the beginning, they have, unfortunately, the same hallmarks. A lot of times you see each one of these family members in separate beds. We don't know the timing of the shooting, but oftentimes it's when they were sleeping. So they'd be separately in individual bedrooms. And then they found David, dad, inside the home with what they said was a self-inflicted gunshot wound with the gun still in his hand. So.
00:07:47
Speaker 1: What would you say? So the first call for the wellness check, police went by on last Thursday, right? That's October 1st. Not until the next night, right around six o'clock, did they go in. Fair to say, Robes, they were dead at least since October. Well, I don't know. Does somebody call and do a wellness check after somebody's been missing for one day? I mean, how long were they? Maybe they didn't show up to somewhere they were supposed to be or whatnot. So my first, when I heard the timing of the police going to the house, I'm like, that doesn't make sense. The crime taking place there in bed. But it could have been overnight. Correct.
00:08:22
Speaker 2: It could have been quite some time before someone called to say, hey, it's weird.
00:08:26
Speaker 3: I haven't heard from so-and-so. They put in a phone call.
00:08:29
Speaker 2: Police usually wait a little while to see if something else turns up, but they weren't able to get in touch with any one of those individuals. And so, yes, eventually they did break in the door and unfortunately find this horrific, horrific scene. And so, yes, the investigation is ongoing.
00:08:48
Speaker 3: And right now, if you look at any.
00:08:50
Speaker 2: Of the news reports, police are literally asking the public for any information.
00:08:56
Speaker 3: Do you know anything.
00:08:57
Speaker 2: About any one of these folks that could have led to what the scene was that they found? And so they're asking for, they've set up a tip line and they're really asking for help and trying to figure out the why, the why, the why, the why. That's always what we want to know. And there's never really a justifiable answer.
00:09:13
Speaker 1: Well, justifiable is one thing, bro. It's rare we even get a good answer. Like why is, okay, you just lost your job. Why did you go shoot your six kids? Like, we don't get that a lot of times, babe. Yes, there have been cases in the past several months. Five kids killed, six kids, four kids, three kids. Robes, I just, these stories, they do not ever make sense. Who is he? There's no way. Is he mad enough at his wife and daughter that he needs to go kill them both? And Robes, the bed thing, that's methodical, that's intentional. It's planned.
00:09:48
Speaker 3: It's planned.
00:09:50
Speaker 1: To the head specifically, these weren't confrontations, these weren't fights that erupted.
00:09:55
Speaker 2: No, and to think, like, I just don't understand the 20, 24-year-old daughter was about to get her master's degree.
00:10:03
Speaker 3: Her whole life was ahead of her. They invested in this girl.
00:10:06
Speaker 2: They sent her to the Hun school, this prestigious boarding school, so she could have the best possible foundation for the best future possible. He had just put his home in her name under a trust. They were members of multiple exclusive country clubs. They were active in their community. It doesn't make sense. And look, we were scratching our heads. I actually found a recent Washington Post article where they too were looking into this rise in familicides. And they say from 2017- to 2025, more than 3000 people died in this type of violence. But as of now, family and partner killings account for 21% of all homicides. And that is up 15% in.
00:10:59
Speaker 3: Just the last five years. So there is a trend.
00:11:02
Speaker 2: When we come back, we're going to tell you who does this because they all have very similar characteristics.
00:11:09
Speaker 3: And we're going to go over.
00:11:10
Speaker 2: Just some of the unbelievable stories we've seen in just the past few months. Welcome back everyone to Amy and TJ. We are talking about another horrific familicide. This one happening just outside of Princeton, New Jersey, 61 year old David Grodnick, A lawyer had his doctorate from Quinnipiac University living in a multi-million dollar home with his 62-year-old wife and their 24-year-old daughter, who was on her way to getting her master's degree next year, all found shot dead in their homes at the hands of 61-year-old David.
00:11:57
Speaker 3: And look, this is tough.
00:12:00
Speaker 2: And isn't it bizarre how it's followed a very similar eerie pattern.
00:12:06
Speaker 1: We were talking about this earlier this year, that this is, it could become, is it potentially becoming what school shootings were? Like people get inspired or ideas by what they're seeing on television and their frustrations boil over and then they feel whatever they're feeling and, oh, well, there's an option. Roams, there have been more familicide killings in a year than school shooting deaths in this country.
00:12:30
Speaker 3: That's insane.
00:12:30
Speaker 1: This is a bigger... Oh, excuse me. I can't compare bigger problem. We are losing more people in families to family members than we are students to school shootings.
00:12:40
Speaker 3: This needs to be investigated.
00:12:41
Speaker 2: And when you look at the pictures of these families, these are families that look like you would be scrolling through on Instagram that have... picture-perfect lives. And the same is the case with the Grodnicks. I've been fascinated just looking at their pictures, thinking, how does this happen?
00:12:57
Speaker 3: And who does this? It's almost always white men.
00:13:00
Speaker 2: We have had a few cases this year where I believe one or two were black men.
00:13:05
Speaker 1: Kansas and Louisiana.
00:13:06
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:13:07
Speaker 2: Is that right?
00:13:07
Speaker 1: Was it the Louisiana one, the one where he was chasing kids on the roof?
00:13:10
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:13:10
Speaker 3: That was that one.
00:13:11
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:13:11
Speaker 3: But it is almost, statistically speaking, white men.
00:13:15
Speaker 2: Yes. and the characteristics are they're insecure, they have difficulty with humiliation, controlling, often don't have a criminal history of violence, often educated, successful, family-oriented, but oftentimes the only indication of the why, it's tied to either a recent financial difficulty or relationship trouble, something that would be considered humiliating.
00:13:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, that alters their belief of what their reality is, should be, is required to be? They say they do. How do we not see signs of that leading up? And they say you really don't, other than really controlling nature, carefully curating their lives, always making sure things are in right place and perfect. They say that is a common trait, but other than that, we know a lot of controlling people.
00:14:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, so how do you know if the person you marry, the person you're sleeping next to, Has this in him that that's something he could be? And I say he because it's just been men. And I wonder as a wife or as a daughter or as a child and looking up to your parent, like what are the warning signs? It's absolutely frightening. It's as if they just snap. They don't leave notes behind explaining. They just take everybody out with them.
00:14:33
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of one, Ro. They don't. It's usually not a mental health issue. There's no indication, like domestic violence or mental health history aren't there to be a sign. You don't know.
00:14:45
Speaker 2: No, and I think we've gone back and documented some of these, like Shamar Elkins in Louisiana. That's the one you were just talking to. That was in April of this year. Shot and killed eight kids. Seven of them were his own. He chased them down.
00:14:57
Speaker 1: Now, he had a mental health history.
00:14:58
Speaker 3: He did.
00:14:59
Speaker 1: A severe one, yeah.
00:15:00
Speaker 2: He is maybe the outlier in all of these stories because then you have Ryan McFarlane from Iowa in June, killed six of his family members. Then you had Ryan Whiten in Florida in June as well. 42-year-old real estate agent killed his wife, their daughters who were 11 and 8 before killing himself.
00:15:18
Speaker 3: The one in Michigan, Christopher Karalkowitz.
00:15:21
Speaker 1: That was an awful one.
00:15:22
Speaker 2: This one was terrible. July of 2026, killed his wife and six kids ages 5 to 15. That was another one where in a really wealthy suburb of Detroit, beautiful home, very similar to what the home looked like in Princeton.
00:15:36
Speaker 3: New Jersey.
00:15:37
Speaker 1: This is the one where he set the fire, right?
00:15:39
Speaker 3: Then he set a fire.
00:15:40
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:15:40
Speaker 2: Nathan Brown in Minnesota. We covered this one in August. Fatally stabbed his mother first. Then he went after his wife and seven-year-old daughter with a screwdriver at their home daycare.
00:15:50
Speaker 1: Kids were present. Other kids were there.
00:15:51
Speaker 3: Kids were present. Then he shot himself.
00:15:54
Speaker 2: Benjamin Parker in Oregon, that also was in August, shot his girlfriend, her mother, her grandmother, her best friend and boyfriend, all.
00:16:02
Speaker 3: Living in the home together.
00:16:04
Speaker 1: The house, that's right.
00:16:05
Speaker 3: They found him somewhere else. Look, that's just a few.
00:16:07
Speaker 2: There are so many, but those are several of the ones that we've covered today. And if you just Google it, I just did now.
00:16:15
Speaker 3: It's appalling. It is appalling.
00:16:17
Speaker 2: And that Washington Post article I read, that was from, I believe, in July or August, like before even we've seen a string of them since then. But people are taking notice. And I just wonder what it's going to take to actually really start asking tough questions. The problem is everyone's dead. You can't examine it. There isn't a trial yet. And so when there isn't a trial, yes, it might make a headline for a day or two, but then people forget because everyone who cares died. Everyone who would be fighting for justice is gone. I mean, there might be other family members, but they pretty much tend to take out everyone who would be still asking for attention, asking for explanation, asking for answers, keeping the story alive.
00:17:01
Speaker 1: Well, there's no right. What thorough investigation do you need if you have, your victims, and your perpetrator dead. This is almost a case closed. It really is. But if it happens in Michigan, then it happens in Louisiana, and then it happens in California, those three agencies aren't coordinating. They just say, oh, we had one one-off thing happen here in Minnesota. One-off thing happened here. Robe, somebody needs to be collecting all this stuff. We've got to figure this out. Babe, this year has been awful. It's been awful. Robe, these should be so rare to happen. Now they're happening with great regularity.
00:17:39
Speaker 2: And they're happening with great regularity, but also with similar earmarks, enough to raise a flag, enough for folks to be paying attention, enough for people to say, hey, if you see something, say something. And especially, I'm talking successful, educated white men with families. If you're having a mental health break, if you're having a crisis, we need to pay attention and we need to offer support and at least let this be known that there is help. There is an alternative to ending it all and taking everyone out with you.
00:18:12
Speaker 3: But again, just another.
00:18:14
Speaker 2: Tragedy this time in New Jersey, but we'll continue to keep our eye and hope this trend stops. This is just nothing short of awful. We always appreciate you listening to us, everyone. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes.
00:18:27
Speaker 3: We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Hey there folks, it is Wednesday, October 7th. And why, why do men keep killing their entire families and then killing themselves? Yes, folks, another case of familicide. It's happened again, and this time in New Jersey. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Robes. It's been, it's weird to say, it's been a few weeks since we've done one of these. But Rose, we were doing them every single month, sometimes more than one a month, sometimes more than one a week. of these stories. They're just shocking every time, but they seem, don't they, Robes, to follow a similar pattern.
00:00:39
Speaker 2: Yes, they all follow a similar eerie pattern where you see seemingly successful men who have money, who have what looks like a perfect family from the outside looking in, shocking their friends, their family, their communities by killing their entire families and then themselves. And we've just seen an epidemic of these cases, specifically this year.
00:01:08
Speaker 3: It's really disturbing.
00:01:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, and anybody familiar who's spent some time with us, and we have regular listeners here, we were doing a lot of these this summer, especially, Robes, to the point we stopped and did a full examination in a couple of episodes of this phenomenon now, really, familicide. Robes, I didn't think we'd be using the word that much.
00:01:30
Speaker 2: No.
00:01:30
Speaker 1: But it's been a lot this summer, and it seems weird to think that, wow, we haven't covered one of these in a while. Well, we shouldn't have.
00:01:37
Speaker 2: No.
00:01:37
Speaker 1: We shouldn't be covering these as regularly as we are, but it was almost a surprise to me. You brought those into my attention today, and I... Oh, well, yeah. We haven't had one in a while.
00:01:45
Speaker 2: We haven't, and it's sad that we have any to report, period. But this one actually is close to New York City. This is just outside of Princeton, New Jersey, to give folks an idea of where in the world we're talking about.
00:01:59
Speaker 3: Specifically, a town called Skillman, New Jersey.
00:02:02
Speaker 2: This is a well-off town in between Philadelphia and New York City.
00:02:09
Speaker 3: And the father, who has been now.
00:02:13
Speaker 2: I say accused, it sounds strange because he's dead, but police say that he killed his wife, his daughter, and then himself. He was a highly successful insurance executive. There is no known motive, and we'll tell you what we do know. This is just head-scratching. 61 years old, David Grodnick. He had his doctorate from Quinnipiac University School of Law, senior vice president at and the underwriting counsel with Land Services USA. What could be so terribly wrong?
00:02:47
Speaker 1: I mean, just, Robes, we never know. And it doesn't make anything less tragic if the family had however amount in their bank account. These do, Robes, as a part of these, have been striking and shocking. That you see people, everybody's got something going on in their lives, but Robes, we go from people who appear to have... Everything. Enviable lives. Yes.
00:03:13
Speaker 2: And the pictures of this home are everywhere just outside of Princeton. Gorgeous $ 2 million, 6,000 square foot home. His wife, 62-year-old Laura Grodnick. I just looked up her Instagram. You know how some people have quotes that they'll have basically that say who they are on their Instagram page.
00:03:34
Speaker 3: You can have a bio. You can have a quote.
00:03:37
Speaker 2: Her quote is, Carpe diem. Princeton to Palm Beach to Sea Island. Look, it sounds like they may have had homes in those places or they frequent in those places. They were snowbirds maybe.
00:03:49
Speaker 3: Again, an enviable life.
00:03:51
Speaker 2: Someone who can just say, yeah, I go back and forth between Princeton, Palm Beach, Florida, and Sea Island, Georgia. Who wants to raise their hand and live that life?
00:04:01
Speaker 3: Just about everybody.
00:04:02
Speaker 2: And then 24-year-old Sloane Grodnick.
00:04:06
Speaker 3: This is where I really... just get confused.
00:04:09
Speaker 2: She was a graduate of the Hun School in Princeton. It's an exclusive boarding school. She was set to complete her master's degree at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2027. She had her entire life ahead of her, and she was living with her parents.
00:04:25
Speaker 3: I thought this was interesting.
00:04:26
Speaker 2: Public records show that in September, so just a few weeks ago, the home ownership was transferred to from mom and dad, David and Laura, to Sloan in a trust. So it was almost as if they were preparing for her future and putting the home and her name under a trust.
00:04:45
Speaker 1: Hell of a coincidence, though. Why? Why?
00:04:48
Speaker 3: How did this happen?
00:04:59
Speaker 1: That's bizarre. If it plays into it at all, who knows? But that's a hell of a coincidence, Rosalie. We have talked in a lot of these stories, there is a shift, a dynamic change. Oftentimes, it's somebody losing a job, something like some change in that family dynamic. That doesn't seem to rise to the level of some of the other things we've been talking about, but still, it's worth noting.
00:05:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, it certainly is. Also worth noting....
00:05:23
Speaker 2: Some of the local reporting there, the Montgomery News, which is a local paper there, reported that the couple, they were just trying to find out anything. Everyone's looking for the why. There's no report that he had lost his job. There's no report that there was an affair. There's no report that anything was going on in their lives other than they had been the plaintiffs in multiple lawsuits. So they were plaintiffs in multiple class action lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson, Capital One.
00:05:51
Speaker 3: Discovered. They had multiple.
00:05:53
Speaker 2: Personal lawsuits over the last five years, including breach of contract, rental disputes, construction liens. Look, they may have had homes in all of these places, and maybe this was just coincidental. And maybe because he's a lawyer, he knew he could be litigious if he wanted to be.
00:06:08
Speaker 1: I think, who knows what all that means, but I guess given his line of work, it makes more sense, given that he deals in real estate, given that he deals like his own homes, but he also deals in insurance. Like there's a lot of, he deals in legal stuff all the time. I don't know how bizarre or how that, but I would have felt different if you told me they were the defendants in all these.
00:06:32
Speaker 3: Yes, they were the plaintiffs.
00:06:34
Speaker 2: But just to give you a tick tock of how this all happened and how police were even made aware of this, 3 p.m. last Thursday, the police there received a call, basically a wellness check. Obviously somebody didn't show up to work. Somebody didn't show up to class. And so eventually police were called to try and figure out what was going on.
00:06:55
Speaker 3: They couldn't get in contact with any family members.
00:06:58
Speaker 2: And eventually around 6 p.m. the next day, so this was Friday, October 1st, officers forced their way into the home. And that is where they found Laura and Sloan, each dead from gunshot wounds to the head in separate bedrooms.
00:07:16
Speaker 3: Look, oftentimes.
00:07:18
Speaker 2: We have seen these cases, and again, you mentioned, babe, at the beginning, they have, unfortunately, the same hallmarks. A lot of times you see each one of these family members in separate beds. We don't know the timing of the shooting, but oftentimes it's when they were sleeping. So they'd be separately in individual bedrooms. And then they found David, dad, inside the home with what they said was a self-inflicted gunshot wound with the gun still in his hand. So.
00:07:47
Speaker 1: What would you say? So the first call for the wellness check, police went by on last Thursday, right? That's October 1st. Not until the next night, right around six o'clock, did they go in. Fair to say, Robes, they were dead at least since October. Well, I don't know. Does somebody call and do a wellness check after somebody's been missing for one day? I mean, how long were they? Maybe they didn't show up to somewhere they were supposed to be or whatnot. So my first, when I heard the timing of the police going to the house, I'm like, that doesn't make sense. The crime taking place there in bed. But it could have been overnight. Correct.
00:08:22
Speaker 2: It could have been quite some time before someone called to say, hey, it's weird.
00:08:26
Speaker 3: I haven't heard from so-and-so. They put in a phone call.
00:08:29
Speaker 2: Police usually wait a little while to see if something else turns up, but they weren't able to get in touch with any one of those individuals. And so, yes, eventually they did break in the door and unfortunately find this horrific, horrific scene. And so, yes, the investigation is ongoing.
00:08:48
Speaker 3: And right now, if you look at any.
00:08:50
Speaker 2: Of the news reports, police are literally asking the public for any information.
00:08:56
Speaker 3: Do you know anything.
00:08:57
Speaker 2: About any one of these folks that could have led to what the scene was that they found? And so they're asking for, they've set up a tip line and they're really asking for help and trying to figure out the why, the why, the why, the why. That's always what we want to know. And there's never really a justifiable answer.
00:09:13
Speaker 1: Well, justifiable is one thing, bro. It's rare we even get a good answer. Like why is, okay, you just lost your job. Why did you go shoot your six kids? Like, we don't get that a lot of times, babe. Yes, there have been cases in the past several months. Five kids killed, six kids, four kids, three kids. Robes, I just, these stories, they do not ever make sense. Who is he? There's no way. Is he mad enough at his wife and daughter that he needs to go kill them both? And Robes, the bed thing, that's methodical, that's intentional. It's planned.
00:09:48
Speaker 3: It's planned.
00:09:50
Speaker 1: To the head specifically, these weren't confrontations, these weren't fights that erupted.
00:09:55
Speaker 2: No, and to think, like, I just don't understand the 20, 24-year-old daughter was about to get her master's degree.
00:10:03
Speaker 3: Her whole life was ahead of her. They invested in this girl.
00:10:06
Speaker 2: They sent her to the Hun school, this prestigious boarding school, so she could have the best possible foundation for the best future possible. He had just put his home in her name under a trust. They were members of multiple exclusive country clubs. They were active in their community. It doesn't make sense. And look, we were scratching our heads. I actually found a recent Washington Post article where they too were looking into this rise in familicides. And they say from 2017- to 2025, more than 3000 people died in this type of violence. But as of now, family and partner killings account for 21% of all homicides. And that is up 15% in.
00:10:59
Speaker 3: Just the last five years. So there is a trend.
00:11:02
Speaker 2: When we come back, we're going to tell you who does this because they all have very similar characteristics.
00:11:09
Speaker 3: And we're going to go over.
00:11:10
Speaker 2: Just some of the unbelievable stories we've seen in just the past few months. Welcome back everyone to Amy and TJ. We are talking about another horrific familicide. This one happening just outside of Princeton, New Jersey, 61 year old David Grodnick, A lawyer had his doctorate from Quinnipiac University living in a multi-million dollar home with his 62-year-old wife and their 24-year-old daughter, who was on her way to getting her master's degree next year, all found shot dead in their homes at the hands of 61-year-old David.
00:11:57
Speaker 3: And look, this is tough.
00:12:00
Speaker 2: And isn't it bizarre how it's followed a very similar eerie pattern.
00:12:06
Speaker 1: We were talking about this earlier this year, that this is, it could become, is it potentially becoming what school shootings were? Like people get inspired or ideas by what they're seeing on television and their frustrations boil over and then they feel whatever they're feeling and, oh, well, there's an option. Roams, there have been more familicide killings in a year than school shooting deaths in this country.
00:12:30
Speaker 3: That's insane.
00:12:30
Speaker 1: This is a bigger... Oh, excuse me. I can't compare bigger problem. We are losing more people in families to family members than we are students to school shootings.
00:12:40
Speaker 3: This needs to be investigated.
00:12:41
Speaker 2: And when you look at the pictures of these families, these are families that look like you would be scrolling through on Instagram that have... picture-perfect lives. And the same is the case with the Grodnicks. I've been fascinated just looking at their pictures, thinking, how does this happen?
00:12:57
Speaker 3: And who does this? It's almost always white men.
00:13:00
Speaker 2: We have had a few cases this year where I believe one or two were black men.
00:13:05
Speaker 1: Kansas and Louisiana.
00:13:06
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:13:07
Speaker 2: Is that right?
00:13:07
Speaker 1: Was it the Louisiana one, the one where he was chasing kids on the roof?
00:13:10
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:13:10
Speaker 3: That was that one.
00:13:11
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:13:11
Speaker 3: But it is almost, statistically speaking, white men.
00:13:15
Speaker 2: Yes. and the characteristics are they're insecure, they have difficulty with humiliation, controlling, often don't have a criminal history of violence, often educated, successful, family-oriented, but oftentimes the only indication of the why, it's tied to either a recent financial difficulty or relationship trouble, something that would be considered humiliating.
00:13:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, that alters their belief of what their reality is, should be, is required to be? They say they do. How do we not see signs of that leading up? And they say you really don't, other than really controlling nature, carefully curating their lives, always making sure things are in right place and perfect. They say that is a common trait, but other than that, we know a lot of controlling people.
00:14:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, so how do you know if the person you marry, the person you're sleeping next to, Has this in him that that's something he could be? And I say he because it's just been men. And I wonder as a wife or as a daughter or as a child and looking up to your parent, like what are the warning signs? It's absolutely frightening. It's as if they just snap. They don't leave notes behind explaining. They just take everybody out with them.
00:14:33
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of one, Ro. They don't. It's usually not a mental health issue. There's no indication, like domestic violence or mental health history aren't there to be a sign. You don't know.
00:14:45
Speaker 2: No, and I think we've gone back and documented some of these, like Shamar Elkins in Louisiana. That's the one you were just talking to. That was in April of this year. Shot and killed eight kids. Seven of them were his own. He chased them down.
00:14:57
Speaker 1: Now, he had a mental health history.
00:14:58
Speaker 3: He did.
00:14:59
Speaker 1: A severe one, yeah.
00:15:00
Speaker 2: He is maybe the outlier in all of these stories because then you have Ryan McFarlane from Iowa in June, killed six of his family members. Then you had Ryan Whiten in Florida in June as well. 42-year-old real estate agent killed his wife, their daughters who were 11 and 8 before killing himself.
00:15:18
Speaker 3: The one in Michigan, Christopher Karalkowitz.
00:15:21
Speaker 1: That was an awful one.
00:15:22
Speaker 2: This one was terrible. July of 2026, killed his wife and six kids ages 5 to 15. That was another one where in a really wealthy suburb of Detroit, beautiful home, very similar to what the home looked like in Princeton.
00:15:36
Speaker 3: New Jersey.
00:15:37
Speaker 1: This is the one where he set the fire, right?
00:15:39
Speaker 3: Then he set a fire.
00:15:40
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:15:40
Speaker 2: Nathan Brown in Minnesota. We covered this one in August. Fatally stabbed his mother first. Then he went after his wife and seven-year-old daughter with a screwdriver at their home daycare.
00:15:50
Speaker 1: Kids were present. Other kids were there.
00:15:51
Speaker 3: Kids were present. Then he shot himself.
00:15:54
Speaker 2: Benjamin Parker in Oregon, that also was in August, shot his girlfriend, her mother, her grandmother, her best friend and boyfriend, all.
00:16:02
Speaker 3: Living in the home together.
00:16:04
Speaker 1: The house, that's right.
00:16:05
Speaker 3: They found him somewhere else. Look, that's just a few.
00:16:07
Speaker 2: There are so many, but those are several of the ones that we've covered today. And if you just Google it, I just did now.
00:16:15
Speaker 3: It's appalling. It is appalling.
00:16:17
Speaker 2: And that Washington Post article I read, that was from, I believe, in July or August, like before even we've seen a string of them since then. But people are taking notice. And I just wonder what it's going to take to actually really start asking tough questions. The problem is everyone's dead. You can't examine it. There isn't a trial yet. And so when there isn't a trial, yes, it might make a headline for a day or two, but then people forget because everyone who cares died. Everyone who would be fighting for justice is gone. I mean, there might be other family members, but they pretty much tend to take out everyone who would be still asking for attention, asking for explanation, asking for answers, keeping the story alive.
00:17:01
Speaker 1: Well, there's no right. What thorough investigation do you need if you have, your victims, and your perpetrator dead. This is almost a case closed. It really is. But if it happens in Michigan, then it happens in Louisiana, and then it happens in California, those three agencies aren't coordinating. They just say, oh, we had one one-off thing happen here in Minnesota. One-off thing happened here. Robe, somebody needs to be collecting all this stuff. We've got to figure this out. Babe, this year has been awful. It's been awful. Robe, these should be so rare to happen. Now they're happening with great regularity.
00:17:39
Speaker 2: And they're happening with great regularity, but also with similar earmarks, enough to raise a flag, enough for folks to be paying attention, enough for people to say, hey, if you see something, say something. And especially, I'm talking successful, educated white men with families. If you're having a mental health break, if you're having a crisis, we need to pay attention and we need to offer support and at least let this be known that there is help. There is an alternative to ending it all and taking everyone out with you.
00:18:12
Speaker 3: But again, just another.
00:18:14
Speaker 2: Tragedy this time in New Jersey, but we'll continue to keep our eye and hope this trend stops. This is just nothing short of awful. We always appreciate you listening to us, everyone. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes.
00:18:27
Speaker 3: We'll talk to you soon.