Today I bring you a case that has creeped me out since I learned of it. It involves a baby, a father, and a daughter. It starts off normal, get’s happy, becomes unhappy, and then it moves well past that into creepy, and then ends deadly.
Alyssa was 17 years old and pregnant. Her boyfriend at the time, Steven, was in his 20’s and she had met him online. The couple eloped in New York City, and they had a baby girl, which they named Denise. Steven was an aggressive and abusive man not only to his teenage wife, but to his infant daughter as well. Many times Steven had locked baby Denise in a cooler to muffle the sound of her crying, and he would pinch her hard enough that she was covered in bruises.
Steven being the primary care giver to Denise, did not hold nor bond with his daughter. He did not have a job, and Alyssa held down several jobs to provide for the family. Finally Alyssa could no longer tolerate her husband abusing their daughter, she make the heartbreaking decision to put Denise up for adoption to save the child from further abuse and possibly death. Alyssa would later explain that she put the child up for adoption due to depression.
Denise was adopted to a couple in New York and her name was changed to Katie Fusco. After she grew up, she became curious about her biological parents. She reached out to the then unknown Steven and Alyssa and eventually began exchanging messages with them. When Katie was 18 years old, she finally went to their home in West Virginia to meet them.
Not only did Katie get to meet her biological parents, she also met two sisters she didn’t know about. They were 6 and 11 years old when Katie rejoined the family. Alyssa also decided to tell Katie the truth behind her being put up for adoption, she had informed Katie; “Your dad abused you.” However Katie didn’t have a reaction to this and got along extremely well with her biological father, Steven.
After a month of staying there, Steven began to sleep on the floor of Katie’s room. And then his behavioral patterns changed, and also his image. Alyssa had planned to separate from Steven around the time Katie came to stay. Alyssa opted to stay with her father after her mother and sisters moved out.
Nothing good seems to come about when a teenage daughter and her father are left alone, and this relationship is no different. Learning that Steven had informed his younger daughters to now call Katie, “Mom” instead of “sister” at first confused Alyssa. But then she found a drawing from one of her daughters showing a woman with a large stomach.
In September of 2017, Steven called Alyssa and informed her he planned to remarry and start a family with someone else. That someone else being his biological daughter, Katie Fusco. Alyssa then realized that the two had been having an incestuous affair almost the entire time that Katie had been staying with them.
July 20th, Steven and Katie married. The bride was pregnant, and photos shared on social media showed the couple kissing, and a wedding photo of the couple standing between Steven’s mother, and Katie’s adopted parents. Everyone was smiling.
Four months later, Katie returned to New York to her adopted family. She wanted out of the relationship, and they had recently been arrested for incest. It was a class five felony and carried a maximum 10 year sentence. This event set Steven into a rage.
He made the decision that there was only one way out of this situation: suicide. The only problem was he had some unfinished business to deal with; Katie, and their 7 month old son, Bennett. As Katie had said their relationship was over, Steven was furious.
In March of 2018, Steven was released from jail on bail, with the condition that he not make contact with his biological daughter. Bennett was in the care of his paternal grandmother. He picked up his son from his mother, and said he was taking him to visit Katie. Unfortunately Steven would kill Bennett, before driving to Connecticut and shooting not only Katie, but her adopted father, Tony, as well. Both died in the truck they were sitting in from their attack.
Driving back to Virginia, Steven called his mother and confessed to what he had done. And then he killed himself with a bullet to his head.
It’s sad that an innocent child was murdered by his own father/grandfather, and a girl who was trying to reconnect with her biological family was murdered for not wanting to continue an incestuous relationship with her father. Another innocent victim was Tony Fusco, who was being a father and helping Katie put her life back together.
It’s easy to point the finger of blame to people in this case, and I sincerely wish that Steven had not been able to post bail. Had he been kept behind bars he may not have murdered his son, daughter, or her father. Alyssa Pladl, even though she wasn’t aware of the relationship at first, may not be guilty of anything, but I feel that she should have informed police and authorities earlier when her husband chose to sleep in her teenage daughter’s bedroom. Again, this is all my opinion, but the facts remain that four people are dead, and nothing will bring them back.
Be strong, make good choices, stay safe
Amateur Connoisseur 