Couple Dealing With COVID-19 Found Dead In Christmas Day Murder-Suicide, Police Say

The husband in a Connecticut couple found shot dead in a Christmas Day murder-suicide was reportedly awaiting the results of a COVID-19 test after his wife and mother-in-law had tested positive for the disease, according to local police. 

Attorney John Liquori, 59, and his wife, local business owner Cindy Liquori, 55, of Suffield, were found shot dead in a home in nearby Windsor Locks, police said. The home where their bodies were found belonged to Cindy's mother, Claire Palmer, who was undergoing treatment for COVID-19 at a local hospital at the time of the murder-suicide, police told Oxygen.com.

The Windsor Locks Police Department received a 911 call from a person reporting a murder-suicide on Dec. 25, according to a press release. Responding officers located an adult couple inside the home with significant trauma, which “was not compatible with life.” Medics on the scene made a presumption of death at approximately 6:10 p.m, police said.

Both died from gunshot wounds to the head, according to a spokesman from the chief medical examiner’s office in Farmington. Police confirmed that a revolver found at the scene was the murder weapon. 

John Liquori and his wife Cindy Liquori were found shot dead in a Connecticut home on Dec. 25, 2020. Photo: Facebook

According to their family, Cindy Liquori was COVID-19-positive at the time of her death while John Liquori was awaiting test results, police told the Hartford Journal-Inquirer. 

Cindy Liquori had been dog-sitting and watching the house for her mother while she was hospitalized, Lt. Paul Cherniak told Oxygen.com. While a state police source told the Hartford-Courant that she was shot while sleeping before her husband lay down beside her and turned the gun on himself, Cherniak said that is difficult to determine, given the nature of the killing.

“She was shot in the head area, but you would have to be ... could you have been held down, and you were wide awake?” he told Oxygen.com. “We can’t say definitively.”

John Liquori had practiced law for nearly 32 years, according to his LinkedIn page, and specialized in criminal defense, family law, and litigation, according to his profile on the website Lawyer.com.

Cindy Liquori was the owner of Cindy's Soap Cottage, a small shop in East Windsor where she sold handmade artisanal soaps, CBD topicals and tinctures, bath bombs, body luxuries, candles, and other items, according to Patch.com. The local news site had spoken to her two weeks before her death, and she told the outlet that amid the pandemic she had pivoted to producing high-quality masks and hand sanitizer, and was more focused on helping the community rather than profits for her business. 

John Liquori is survived by a daughter, Kristen, 33, of Enfield, and Cindy Liquori did not have children, according to the Hartford Journal-Inquirer.