Citrus County Deaths Of Mom, 3 Kids May Be Murder-Suicide
FLORAL CITY – Greg Maslowski called 911 and told them to come quickly. He had just found his stepdaughter and her three boys, all younger than 4, dead in his home.
“I’m outside the house. I’m not going in the house,” he told a 911 operator at about 10 a.m. Friday as his wife screamed and shrieked in the background. “I’m not even going in the room.”
As he spoke with the operator, his wife cried, “Please God. No, no, no.”
The Citrus County Sheriff’s Office is treating the deaths at 4983 E. Stoer Lane in Floral City as a murder-suicide, said Heather Yates, a sheriff’s spokeswoman. Authorities said a firearm was recovered nearby.
The woman, 23-year-old Alicia Chomic, was found in a bedroom with her sons, Anthony Michael Lietz Jr., 15 months; Damian Michael Lietz, 2; and Thomas Anthony Goldsmith Jr., 3. Deputies say the four likely died sometime Thursday night.
Chomic, who has recently lived in Pasco County, and her older children were on a bed; her youngest child was in a bassinet.
Citrus County records list Greg and Vickie Maslowski as the owners of the property, identified as a mobile home.
The Maslowskis were taken to an area hospital, suffering from distress after discovering of the bodies, deputies say. They weren’t there when the deaths occurred.Citrus County Sheriff Jeff Dawsy said Chomic’s mother was so upset authorities were not able to talk to her much.
“It’s very tough for us to pull a lot of information out,” Dawsy said. “We will be interviewing her again tomorrow, but we felt right now that we have enough information.”
Deputies said Chomic had moved back to the home of her mother and stepfather with the children in the past week. Public records indicate she had lived for the past several years in Pasco County.
Chomic’s mother, Vickie Maslowski, and stepfather came home Thursday night and noticed that the door to the room Chomic shared with her sons was closed. The stepfather said on the 911 call that the couple thought Chomic and the children were sleeping.
“There was no sort of movement or anything,” Dawsy said. “So they never went in and checked. So we’re taking it from there and moving back on a timeline.”
Friday morning, Chomic’s mother went into the room and found the bodies.
“The problem is, is I’ve got three people that look like they’re passed away in my … three children,” Greg Maslowski, 45, told the 911 operator. “My wife’s going crazy.”
Investigators have contacted the boys’ fathers and said they had not found a suicide note or letter.
Reached Friday evening, Greg Maslowski declined to comment.
Little was known late Friday about Chomic’s background or what might have led her to kill her three children and then herself. Public records show she had lived in Pasco County from at least 2004 to 2007, at several addresses in New Port Richey and Port Richey.
One of those addresses was the Ebenezer Vincent apartments in New Port Richey, a small apartment complex of about two dozen units, populated mostly by lower-income residents. Several neighbors at the complex contacted Friday evening said they did not know Chomic.
Floral City is a rural community about 60 miles north of Tampa. The home where the apparent murder-suicide occurred is on a quiet street near farms and open fields.
Neighbors said they didn’t hear anything unusual Thursday night or Friday morning and couldn’t recall having seen the mother and her children before.
Neighbor Tammy Shelton said she didn’t hear gunshots and that her three dogs – who normally respond to anything, even car lights – didn’t appear to hear anything, either.
Neighbor Alicia Diamond said her own father heard the victim’s first name and rushed home from work, worrying that his daughter was dead.
Tribune reporter Josh Poltilove, and News Channel 8 reporter Peter Bernard contributed to this report. Information from the Associated Press also was used in this report.
