Elderly couple who were due to renew their wedding vows for their 50th anniversary are found stabbed and battered to death in ‘random attack’ alongside the wife’s mom in her 90s – after they failed to show up at church

Three elderly people were found murdered in their home in Massachusetts
They included an elderly couple and the woman’s mother, in her late 90s
Police said there was evidence of a break in and told locals to lock their doors
By NEIRIN GRAY DESAI FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

An elderly couple that failed to appear at church on Sunday to renew their wedding vows in a celebration of their 50th anniversary were later found murdered in their home along with the wife’s mother, who was 97.

Jill and Bruno D’Amore, 73 and 74, described as ‘fantastic Italian people who wouldn’t hurt a soul’, celebrated their wedding anniversary on Saturday night and were due to renew their vows at Our Lady Help of Christians Church on Sunday.

But they never showed up and at around 10.15am, shortly after mass had begun, were found dead in their home alongside Jill’s mother, Lucia Arpino, who had attended that Sunday mass for more than 60 years.

The three were said to have died of stab wounds and blunt-force trauma and there were signs that the house – located Newton, Massachusetts – had been broken into, police said on Sunday night.

The Newton Police Chief advised residents to keep their doors locked and check their surveillance cameras in case anything had been captured on video. No suspects had been identified as of Sunday night.

Jill and Bruno D’Amore, 73 and 74, and Jill’s mother, Lucia Arpino, 97, were found dead in their Massachusetts home by a neighbor after they failed to attend Sunday mass

The D’Amores and their mother were expected at church on Sunday morning but did not show up, causing a neighbor to check in on them at their house (pictured)

Police said there was evidence of forced entry into the elderly couple’s home and a separate incidence of burglary was reported that morning around half a mile away

A neighbor who went to check in on the family at their home in the Italian-American neighborhood of Nonantum called 911 at 10.14am after discovering their bodies, Newton police said in a press release.

Jim Sbordone, a retired Newton Fire Department lieutenant who was also close friends with the D’Amores, told The Boston Globe that the family had long been patrons of the nearby Our Lady Help of Christians Church.

‘They were fantastic Italian people who wouldn’t hurt a soul, and they would just do anything for anybody,’ Sbordone told the newspaper.

‘These were great people.

‘This isn’t the type of thing that happens in the neighborhood,’ he said. ‘I hope it never happens again to anybody.’

Cousins of the D’Amores, Paul and Ginny Arpino, noted in a tribute that prior to Covid, Jill’s mother Lucia had not missed a mass in over 60 years.

‘She and her husband Alberto sat in the “North End” section of our church,’ they wrote. According to an obituary published in the Boston Globe, Alberto left her widow after passing away in 2014 aged 87.

Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said during a news conference on Sunday night that half a mile away in Newtonville there had been a separate attempted burglary that morning, at around 5.40am.

She said authorities were still working to establish if the two events were related and if so, in what order they had occurred. She also appealed to members of the community report anything suspicious.

Relatives of those killed, Paul and Ginny Arpino, said Lucia Arpino, 97, would sit with her late husband Alberto at the north end of church and before Covid had attended every Sunday mass for more than 60 years

‘This is the night to lock your doors and windows even if you do not normally do that.

‘It’s a warm night, people may have air conditioners going, be vigilant,’ she said during the conference.

Newton Police Chief Chief John F. Carmichael Jr. said that there would be additional police presence on the streets on Sunday night.

‘I am very concerned with such a violent crime taking place and whereas this individual or individuals is still at large, we do really emphasize again be vigilant,’ he said.

A neighbor that lives two doors down from the couple but wanted to remain anonymous also expressed confusion and shock at such a seemingly arbitrary act of violence.

‘Why them?’ they told The Boston Herald. ‘Why a nice couple like them? Why this neighborhood? Nothing like this happens in this neighborhood.’

He said the victims were a ‘very, very nice couple’.

The pair were regular attendees of the church and Jill is listed on its website as being involved in decorating it ‘in keeping with the liturgical seasons’.

‘Jill had taken on the ministry of beautifying our church’s environment. Without a single day of liturgical training she simply followed her heart, caring for the flowers and decorating for the liturgical seasons. She spent endless hours in the care of our church,’ wrote the couple’s cousins, Paul and Ginny, in a tribute.

The the church’s pastor Rev Dan Riley, told The Globe he had known the family since he moved to the Roman Catholic parish more than six years ago.

Riley described them as ‘just the best vision you could have of a Catholic Italian-American family’

‘They had family warmth, a tomato garden outside, hospitality. They were just great people,’ he added.