 "Photo: Sheraton Deaths. Photo Credit Eric Gazzillo")
After four days of investigation there are still loose ends to be tied.
The motive is unclear, though there is certainty that the Parente family tragedy has left students and community members shaken.
Baltimore County Police confirmed Wednesday morning that William Parente, 59, murdered his wife and daughters, one a Loyola College sophomore and the other an 11-year-old, before taking his own life at the Sheraton Baltimore-North hotel, less than a mile away from Towson University on Dulaney Valley Road.
A cleaning crew found the family Monday afternoon. The bodies of the women were grouped on the king-size bed of the 10th floor room. William Parente was found dead in the bathroom from an apparent suicide.
Autopsy results revealed that three females died from blunt force trauma and asphyxiation. Police are trying to determine a murder weapon. The Federal Bureau of Investigation in New York is looking into potential illegal financial handlings conducted by William Parente.
Since Monday, the Loyola College campus of only 3,500 undergraduate students has been blanketed with sorrow. Pockets of students spoke of the tragedy to one another, speculating on a motive and expressing their sympathies for the family. Stephanie’s close friends and roommates could barely speak at the mass held in her honor Tuesday night.
“This is probably one of the worst things I’ve had to deal with in my life,” Collin Wheeler, a Loyola sophomore, said. He compared the loss of his friend to the aftershock of the September 11 terrorist attacks when he was a Manhattan resident.
“This hit me more personally because this is somebody I knew and interacted with several times a week just seeing her around campus. It’s just terrible,” he said.
During the mass, held at the Loyola Chapel on the school’s campus, scores of congregants filed into the pews, with many more sitting on the floor around the pulpit. As Loyola President Brian L. Linnane attempted to comfort them with prayer, a young girl’s sobbing rivaled his echoing words.
“I have to confess to you, like many of you, I feel at sea by this event. It shakes the foundations that I thought were firm, and what I thought were in place,” Linnane said to the congregants. “I have learned to trust and to hope, even when it feels impossible.”
Stephanie’s roommates, who called the hotel room Sunday night looking for Stephanie, read off prayer messages and scripture during the mass. According to BCPD spokesman Cpl. Mike Hill, the family was likely deceased prior to the phone call.
“For Catherine Parente the sister of Stephanie, may she joyfully live with the other children of God in heaven. We pray to the Lord,” on of her roommates said. “For ‘Little Steph,’ you watch over all the mates, friends, loved ones and acquaintances that you’ve touched so deeply and that you are peaceful and happy with your family in heaven.”
Even the people who did not know Stephanie personally have been affected by the loss of a classmate. Loyola student body president Alex Hollis described the mood on campus Tuesday as “solemn.”
“Walking around campus today, you could feel that there was just something different in the air. Even students that didn’t know Stephanie were very affected by it,” Hollis said. “We have a really small tight-knit community here and we’re all really connected to this and mourning together, but also moving forward together.”
After speaking with Stephanie’s friends, he said they described her as telling the “funniest stories” and that she “brought life to the campus.”
Her freshman year Alpha-class professor and adviser Mark Osteen discussed her death in his afternoon class on Tuesday.
“She was really just a sweet girl, a tiny girl and very soft spoken and kind,” he said. He remembered her as being “bright academically.” He pointed to a plush chair in his office, recalling meetings he had with her.
“It’s very sobering. You’re only 19 but you could die tomorrow and you don’t know how. So live, whatever that means. Life is fragile,” Osteen said.
The first assignment he gave to her in class was to write about her family. He did not remember reading any “red flags.”
Stephanie Parente grew up in Garden City, NY. She was a speech-language pathology major and natural sciences minor. Her extracurricular activities included women’s crew, volunteering at Habitat for Humanity and St. Mary’s School in Govans via Loyola’s Center for Community Service and Justice.
She was scheduled to study abroad in Newcastle, England next year.
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Rest In Peace William, Betty, Stephanie, and Catherine