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For most of her life, Katie Fusco knew that she had been adopted as an infant & raised in New York by Anthony & Kelly Fusco. When she turned 18, she did what countless adopted children do, she began looking for her biological parents in hopes of learning where she came from.
After she found them, what began as an exciting time making a connection with her past, ended in the worst possible nightmare that anyone could ever imagine.
Two decades before the devastation began, 20-year-old Steven Pladl met 15-year-old Alyssa Garcia in an online chatroom in 1995. Since Alyssa was living in San Antonio, Texas, where she had been born & raised & Steven was on Long Island, nearly 2,000 miles separated them. Despite their concerning age gap, Steven pursued Alyssa & three years later, their daughter Denise was born in Austin, Texas on January 29, 1998.
Less than six months later, Steven convinced Alyssa to move to New York with the baby, isolating her from her family to a place where she didn’t know a soul other than Steven.
Now far away from the support of her family, Steven’s true colors began to show. He would fly into a rage when Denise would cry, pinching her, covering her mouth or putting her in a cooler as a way to quiet her down.
Believing that she wasn’t able to protect her baby girl, Alyssa made the painful decision to put Denise up for adoption sometime around September or October of 1998 when Denise was 8-months-old. She felt that this would give her daughter the opportunity for a safer, more stable life.
Despite the abuse & the fact that they had given their baby up for adoption, Alyssa stayed with Steven because of the grooming & control she had been under since such a young age. They went on to get married in 2006 & had two more daughters together.
Although he remained violent & unpredictable, according to Alyssa, he never treated their daughters that way, always acting as more of a playmate to them rather than a father.
After Denise was adopted by Kelly & Anthony “Tony” Fusco, they renamed their daughter Katie Rose Fusco. They raised her with their biological daughter in Dover, about 80 miles north of New York City. While Tony worked as an officer with the New York State Department of Corrections, Kelly was a secretary for the town of Dover’s land-use department. After Tony retired from his corrections job, he began working in maintenance.
The Fuscos lived in a small, gray trailer in a crowded park near a former psychiatric hospital right off the busy road of Route 22. According to Kelly’s brother, Cary Gould, they had a very typical family life together. He nicknamed Katie Pac-Man since she was always eating. She was a vegetarian who had a special spot in her heart for animals.
While she was a student at Dover High School, Katie was a talented artist who was known for drawing comic strips. As a senior, she completed a portfolio depicting the struggles faced by women throughout American history. She also led a group of female students who petitioned the Dover board of education to change what they considered a sexist dress code.
After graduation, she planned to start at a Dutchess County Community College before transferring to SUNY to study art with the goal of pursuing a career in digital advertising. Art was everything to Katie since she found solace from rules & regulations by drawing.
Always knowing that she had been adopted as an infant, when she turned 18 in January 2016, she expressed interest in finding her birth parents. After tracking Steven & Alyssa Pladl down through Facebook, she messaged them, expressing her interest in meeting them after her high school graduation in June 2016 when Steven was 41-years-old & Kelly 36-years-old.
In August 2016, Kelly & Tony drove their daughter to meet the Pladls in Knightdale, North Carolina. Their reunion went so well that Katie decided to put her plans for college on hold so she could move in with Alyssa, Steven & her two younger sisters. They were living in a two story home in Henrico County, Virginia just outside of Richmond.
Although Kelly & Tony were apprehensive about the situation, they supported Katie since their daughter was an adult, who was old enough to make her own decisions.
By the time she moved in with the family, although Steven & Alyssa were still living under the same roof, but sleeping in separate bedrooms, their marriage was over. According to Alyssa, she’d been emotionally & physically abused by her husband for years & she could take no more.
Alyssa had lived her life walking on eggshells, never sure how Steven’s mood was going to be. If it was foul, there would be a lot of yelling & things breaking in the house in front of their children.
Now that Katie was living with them, Alyssa wanted her to know that the main reason she’d put her up for adoption was because Steven had been abusing her as a baby & she wanted her to be safe. After their conversation, Alyssa felt that Katie seemed unconcerned by what she’d been told.
Alyssa also began noticing changes in Steven after Katie moved in with them. He shaved his beard, he allowed his hair to grow long & began wearing skinny jeans & form-fitting t-shirts. Even more concerning, about six weeks later, when Alyssa got up one morning, she found him sleeping on the floor of Katie’s bedroom.
When he did this again the following night, Alyssa confronted him, but he stormed out of the house with Katie, telling her it was none of her business.
In November 2016, when Katie had been living with them for three months, Alyssa moved out with their two younger daughters while she & Steven shared custody of the girls. Although she encouraged Katie to move out with her, she chose to stay in the house with Steven.
Moving forward six months to May 2017, Alyssa sat stunned & sickened when she read her 11-year-old’s journal. She learned that not only were Steven & Katie in an incestuous relationship, but Katie was pregnant with her father’s child. He had also instructed their daughters to refer to Katie as their stepmother even though they knew that she was their sister.
When Alyssa called him in hysterics to confront him about what she’d just read, Steven was nonchalant, saying, I thought you knew. We’re in love. She felt sick to her stomach, screaming that he was sick, that Katie was a child, not to mention, his own child.
Her next phone call was to the police.
Although they were biological father & daughter, 42-year-old Steven & his now 19-year-old daughter began presenting themselves to the world as a couple. Relatives on both sides were deeply disturbed by what was happening, but at the same time, Kelly & Tony Fusco were worried that if they cut ties with their daughter, Steven would further isolate her.
During interviews with a Henrico County detective, Katie’s two little sisters said that Steven & Katie were sleeping in the same bed. One of the girls went on to say that their father told her not to tell anyone about his relationship with Katie or else her friends would make fun of her.
By this time, Katie & Steven were living with Steven’s mom in Knightdale, North Carolina. In the midst of the police investigation, Steven Pladl illegally married his daughter on July 20, 2017 two months after his divorce from Alyssa was finalized.
According to records, since they had different last names, before they were married in Parkton, Maryland, they lied on their application, saying they were unrelated since incestual marriage is illegal between close relatives in all 50 states.
Despite their grave concerns, Tony & Kelly were at the wedding in an effort to maintain their relationship with their daughter. Steven’s mom, Gracie Pladl, was also there. Katie, who was about 32 weeks pregnant, wore a short black dress during the ceremony. Photos from that day depict the group of five standing together along a rocky area of water with smiles on their faces.
A little more than a month later, Katie gave birth to their son Bennett on September 1, 2017. By this time they had moved into a house on a cul-de-sac in Knightdale, North Carolina, just east of Raleigh.
Four months later, they were both arrested at their home in January 2018 on a warrant from Virginia charging them with incest, aduletry & contributing to the deliquency of a minor. A judge ordered them to have no contact with each other. In the meantime, Steven’s mom got custody of Bennett while the legal case played out.
According to Steven’s lawyer, Rick Friedman II, his client never pressured Katie into a relationship. She showed up on his doorstep when his marriage was falling apart & because they were biologically related, they had a bond. They never knew each other before starting a sexual relationship & he was so in love with Katie that it outweighed the issue of them being biologically related.
After they appeared in court in Virginia, they were each released on bond. Katie went back to live in New York with Kelly & Tony. The judge barred Katie & Steven from contacting one another & Steven’s mom was given custody of Bennett.
About three months after their arrests, Katie violated the court order when she called Steven on Wednesday, April 11, 2018 to end their relationship.
As a way to earn money while living back with Kelly & Tony, Katie had been going to her grandma’s house in Waterbury, Connecticut every Tuesday & Thursday to clean for her. When she didn’t show up the next day as expected, she was surprised.
According to surveillance video, when Katie left her Dover home with Tony on Thursday, April 12, 2018, Steven was parked nearby in a minivan, watching them leave from the parking lot of a neighboring liquor store.
He had contacted his mom the night before at about 8 pm, to ask her if he could take Bennett back to his house in Knightdale so that they could get on a Skype call with Katie that evening.
Shortly before midnight, he called his mom again, letting her know that he was going to take the baby to see Katie in New York, something that would violate the terms of his bond. When they spoke again on Thursday morning at about 7 am, he told her that they were in New York where they were planning on meeting up with Katie.
At 8:45 am, he called his mom back, telling her that he just killed Katie as well as her adoptive father, Tony. When she asked him about Bennett, he told her that he killed him the night before & left him at his house on Earlston Court. He said he put a key to the house under the front mat.
Gracie Pladl frantically called 911 to tell the dispatcher exactly what Steven had just told her. With a trembling voice she said, His wife broke up with him over the phone yesterday. He killed his wife, he killed her father. He left the baby dead.
Shortly after her call, New Milford, Connecticut police officers, just over the New York border, confirmed an earlier shooting near the intersection of Route 55 & Route 7 that was a double homicide involving 20-year-old Katie as well as 56-year-old Tony Fusco.
According to New Milford Police Chief Shawn Boyne, Steven had been several cars behind Katie & Tony when he pulled around to the passenger side of their pickup & began firing with an arrow assault type rifle. Multiple witnesses at the busy intersection saw Steven fire rounds that hit the victim’s heads & torsos before frantic 911 calls came pouring in.
Only miles away, at 9:15 am, 43-year-old Steven Pladl was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a light blue minivan with North Carolina license plates in Wingdale, New York.
When officers were dispatched to Steven’s home, they found 7-month-old Bennett dead & alone inside a bathroom closet. According to the autopsy report, little Bennett had contusions of the torso that were consistent with compression & accompanying mechanical asphyxiation.
The murders left the Pladl & Fusco families devastated. Since Steven ended his own life, the pending incest case never went to trial & he never faced charges for murdering three people. When Katie was laid to rest alongside Bennett & her adoptive father, Tony on April 21, 2018, Alyssa chose to send flowers rather than attend the funeral with the hope of decreasing the media attention.
In the years after the murders, Alyssa has spoken publicly about her relationship with Steven, her decision to place Katie up for adoption & the tragic outcome of their reunion so many years later. She wants to open people’s eyes to incest. She has since remarried & has been living a quiet life, having mostly left public life behind.
Alyssa knows that her biological daughter was also controlled & manipulated by Steven, just as she had been as a 15-year-old girl in 1995. Steven had groomed each of them when they had been young & vulnerable, hiding his dark, explosive, violent side from them. Instead, he presented himself as someone who was charming & attentive, making them feel as if they were the most special person in the world.
Katie Fusco had spent much of her life separated from her biological parents. As she got older, her natural curiosity led her to finding Alyssa & Steven Pladl. In meeting them, it gave her the opportunity to learn where she came from, to build relationships with her biological family & to possibly fill in the missing pieces of her childhood.
Instead, she entered a situation that ultimately ended with four people dead.
Although some might question the decisions she made, Katie had only been 18-years-old when she was reunited with the biological father she’d never known. Steven had been a grown man in his forties who had an enormous emotional & psychological advantage over her from the beginning. The way this story ended was entirely Steven’s doing.
Katie had only been 20-years-old when her life ended while her adoptive father, Tony, had been 56. Little Bennett had been completely innocent of everything. After spending years claiming to love & adore Katie, in the end, Steven demonstrated what he’d wanted most of all, which was control.
When he realized that he had finally lost that control, he made sure that Katie would never have the opportunity to build a life without him.
References:
- CBS News: Steven Pladl, Katie Pladl incest case: Details emerge in murder-suicide
- CBS 17: Knightdale incest couple timeline
- WBTV 3: NC incest couple’s infant died from asphxia, autopsy says
- Hartford Courant: The life of aspiring artist Katie Pladl unraveled when she returned to North Carolina
- IMDB: Husband, Father, Killer: The Alyssa Pladl Story
- A&E: Case File: Steven Pladl
- Netflix: Who is Alyssa Pladl? The true story behind Husband, Father, Killer
- People: Where is Alyssa Pladl now? Inside her life after her ex-husband impregnated & killed their daughter
- Oxygen True Crime: She married her dad then had his baby: Inside the disturbing murder of Katie Pladl
