Meaghan M. McDermott
Staff writer
GREECE — A Greece man who shot and killed his 7-year-old son before turning his shotgun on himself Friday night left behind a pages-long chronicle of his plan for the killing.
The apparent motive: revenge against his estranged wife.
"There was an ongoing domestic dispute, and this act was definitely a very spiteful, very aggressive act," said Greece Police Chief Todd Baxter. "This person was a mean person and was doing this pure out of spite."
Police are not releasing the names of the 39-year-old man or the boy who died inside 491 Island Cottage Road, pending identification by the Monroe County Medical Examiner's office.
But according to Monroe County property records, the occupant of 491 Island Cottage Road is Mark Resch.
A longtime friend of Resch, Joe Bartolone of Greece, told media gathered at the scene late Friday night that Resch was the person who had shot his son and then himself. He said Resch was a 1989 graduate of Greece Arcadia High School and had lost his job with a maintenance company last month.
According to a statement released Saturday by the Greece Central School District, the 7-year-old was a first-grader at Paddy Hill Elementary School on Latta Road. The district will offer counseling for students and their parents.
In a written statement, the boy's teacher, Cathy Carpenter, said he was a wonderful child and was well-liked.
"He loved to learn and explore and was so excited to be with his friends," she said.
Police were called to the yellow-clapboard house on Island Cottage Road about 7:30 p.m. Friday, alerted by a 911 call from the boy's mother asking that they check on the welfare of her son, who was staying with his father as part of a court-ordered visitation.
Baxter said the woman was alarmed by a phone conversation she'd just had with her estranged husband, who told her "you'll never make it here in time" to pick up the boy.
Baxter said the woman had left her husband on Jan. 25, the same day she secured a temporary order of protection against him in Monroe County Family Court for alleged threats against her life.
As part of that order, the man was prohibited from owning any guns, so police removed one shotgun from the Island Cottage Drive home at that time.
The man denied owning any others.
Baxter said police were investigating to see how the man got hold of the shotgun used in the killings.
On Monday, Baxter said, Family Court had issued a permanent restraining order against the man. The order included visitation with his son on some weekdays and alternate weekends, he said.
After the 911 call, police arrived at the home within six minutes. Through a front window, they could see a severely injured child on a couch in the living room.
In an effort to save the boy, officers immediately entered the house, where they found the man dead of a gunshot wound just inside the back door. The child was also dead.
Baxter said police found a long note, written over more than a week, that outlined the man's plan to kill his son.
He would not discuss details of the note, which he called "five or six pages of a lot of hate, anger and spite," but said it proved the act was premeditated.
"He thought about this for more than a week, with no indication to us, his wife or the courts," said Baxter. "He talked about how he was going to do it, and our investigation reveals that he pretty much carried out his plan in how he did it. That kid had no chance."
Police held debriefing and counseling sessions for involved officers and the victim's family on Saturday.
Christopher and Cheryl Irick of Island Cottage Road awoke Saturday to news of the murder-suicide. The couple said they never knew Resch or his family and that the neighborhood has always been quiet.
"That's one of the things that attracted us to here," said Christopher Irick. "And the fact that this happened across from the police station makes it even more shocking. It's such an incredibly sad story."
MCDERMOT@DemocratandChronicle.com
Father, young son found dead in apparent murder-suicide in Greece
Chad Roberts
Overnight Editor
GREECE -- Police said a 39-year-old man shot and killed his 7-year-old son and then committed suicide in a house at 491 Island Cottage Road last night.
Chief Todd Baxter of the Greece Police Department said names of the victims have not been released yet, pending identification by the Monroe County Medical Examiner's office.
Baxter said the mother of the child, who was estranged from her husband who lived at 491 Island Cottage, called 911 last evening asking police to check on the welfare of her child.
The house is located directly across Island Cottage Road from the access road leading to the Greece Police Department.
"The wife was responding to the house at the same time we were responding," Baxter said. "She was coming from another location."
When officers arrived at the address at about 7:30, they first checked the exterior of the house, then discovered the grisly scene when they looked inside.
"They peered through one of the windows and they saw an apparent gunshot victim inside the location, in the living room," Baxter said. "They immediately made entry into the house to try and secure that victim. Upon entering the house, the officers found a second victim just inside the back door of the house. That victim was also apparently dead on arrival from a gunshot wound."
Baxter said that the father picked up his son earlier Friday from the mother's residence for a scheduled visitation period. The mother had received an order of protection against her husband on Jan. 25, and at that time, weapons had been cleared from the Island Cottage Road address by police, Baxter said. A second order was issued on Feb. 8.
Baxter said that yesterday evening, the boy's mother became concerned with his welfare after speaking to the boy's father on the phone.
"She called from an area on Ridge Road," Baxter said. "She got worried about her son based on conversations she was having with the male at the house. So she was starting to respond here. While she was responding, she also called 911 and asked us to go check on the welfare of the child. The officers beat her to the scene and were just doing the preliminary check on the exterior of the house when she arrived."
Baxter, who is in his first week as chief of police in Greece after a long career with the Rochester Police Department, said the situation was a difficult one for everybody involved.
"It is very traumatic on the family, the family is extremely distraught, both sides of the family," Baxter said. "The officers are quite upset, the ones that had to go inside and see the child in that condition. It is a very traumatic situation."
Baxter said that the father had left at least one note inside the house that referred to Friday's shootings.
Baxter said the weapon used in the shootings appeared to be a shotgun.
Includes reporting by staff writer Gary McLendon.
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