Man Killed Wife and Self, Police Say
Couple discovered in their East Hampton bed
 South Florida Sun-Sentinel
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(8/21/2008) After two 911 hang-up calls early Monday morning, a third seemed to have a man’s voice at the other end: “Shots fired at 28 Cedar Trail.”
East Hampton Town Police Chief Todd Sarris said his department believes that the man, Lester Stockel Jr., made the calls after shooting his wife, Georgiana Stockel, and before turning the gun on himself at their summer house in East Hampton. They had been married 41 years.
Arriving within minutes of the last phone call, at 5:52 a.m., police officers forced their way through a back door. They found the husband and wife lying on their bed on the second floor, according to Suffolk County Police Homicide Detective Lt. Jack Fitzpatrick. Both had been shot in the head.
Ms. Stockel was in her nightgown and under the covers. “She appeared to be sleeping when she was shot,” the detective said, and was alive but not conscious. “Her wound was significant. She was barely breathing.”
Mr. Stockel was pronounced dead at the scene. He was wearing a bathrobe and was on top of the covers. A 9-millimeter handgun was in his hand.
An ambulance took Ms. Stockel to Southampton Hospital, from which she was transported to Stony Brook University Hospital, which, as a level 1 trauma center, was better equipped to treat her wounds, Detective Fitzpatrick said. She died at the hospital at 9:18 a.m.
The gun found in Mr. Stockel’s hand is not licensed in Suffolk County, Detective Fitzpatrick said. “We also know that it’s not stolen.” He said it might be registered in New Jersey, where the couple lived in Verona.
His department has requested information about the weapon from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, but requests that are not “a high priority could take weeks,” Detective Fitzpatrick said.
Outside the bedroom, the rest of the Stockels’ $2.3 million house was “undisturbed,” he said. Until Monday morning there had been no history of 911 calls from the house, the detective said, and no documented history of domestic violence.
Police have found no evidence that either the husband or wife was ill. “There’s no indication that this would have happened,” Detective Fitzpatrick said.
Mr. Stockel’s parents, Vera Stockel and Lester Stockel Sr., both 88, said they were shocked. “It’s so tragic. It’s surreal,” his mother said on the phone yesterday in Monroe Township, N.J.
“I’m so upset,” she said. “I never saw any arguing or nastiness. I can’t fathom this at all.” She said the couple were “very, very compatible and loving,” that they liked to go boating together, and had many friends.
Vera Stockel said her son and daughter-in-law had been “high school sweethearts” who grew up in the same middle-class suburb and started dating at Woodbridge High School in New Jersey. They married in their early 20s and had children in their 30s.
Their sons, Lester Stockel III of Bloomfield, N.J., and Christopher Stockel of Verona and London, survive, as do three grandsons. Vera Stockel said the couple’s children were “doing pretty well.” She called them “strong.”
John Fierro, a neighbor of the Stockels’ for about 15 years, said he had seen no sign of trouble when he ran into Mr. Stockel at a bank four days before his death.
Mr. Stockel had seemed “very together,” said Mr. Fierro, who described Mr. Stockel as a man who kept himself “in good shape.” They had not seen each other in about a year, Mr. Fierro said.
“We hugged,” said Mr. Fierro, an owner of Fierro’s Pizza in East Hampton Village. “He asked about my kids. He asked about my wife. He did not seem like a guy that would do that.”
Mr. Fierro said that when he heard the news he was “floored.” Ms. Stockel was more reserved than her husband, he said. Their house on Cedar Trail was well manicured and looked “perfect,” Mr. Fierro said, and he often saw their grandchildren playing in the yard on weekends and in summer. The neighborhood is made up mainly of seasonal houses, Mr. Fierro said, but the Stockels used theirs “a lot more than most.”
The couple did not appear to have financial problems, Mr. Stockel’s mother said. They had a luxury apartment in Verona and a condominium, where they spent winters, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. They built a two-story house, with three bedrooms and a pool, in East Hampton in 1993.
Mr. Stockel founded CashFlex, a Philadelphia-based company that processes credit-card transactions. He sold the firm in 1992 and retired, but stayed on as a consultant. His mother said he was “outgoing” and “always laughing,” a description echoed by Mr. Fierro.
Mrs. Stockel described her daughter-in-law as “intelligent, talkative, pleasant, and always smiling.” Georgie, as Mrs. Stockel called her, was an interior decorator who worked “whenever she felt like it.”
“She was just a sweet, lovely girl,” Mrs. Stockel said. “I loved her.”
The Stockels’ sons and grandchildren had recently visited East Hampton, and Georgiana Stockel had sent her mother-in-law photos taken at that time. “Pictures of my son, and Georgie, and her two sons, because Chris was here from England,” Mrs. Stockel said. “They were all sitting on the front porch.” She spoke to her son and daughter-in-law after receiving the pictures about a week ago.
Georgiana Stockel, the former Georgiana Gresh, was predeceased by her parents and stepfather. A sister and three brothers survive in addition to her children and grandchildren. Besides his parents, children, and grandchildren, Lester Stockel Jr. is also survived by a brother, Mark Stockel of Largo, Fla.
This is the second apparent murder-suicide to occur in East Hampton in less than a year. Charles Smith shot and killed his wife, Beatrice Smith, before calling 911 and killing himself on Nov. 19, 2007. The couple had been married nearly 64 years. They were 84, and both were ill.
Detective Fitzpatrick said that the Stockels’ murder-suicide was the third in Suffolk County after that of the Smiths. Another occurred in Selden in January, and another in Calverton in May.
Police expected preliminary results yesterday from autopsies by the Suffolk County medical examiner. Detective Fitzpatrick said even before then that he was comfortable saying that Mr. Stockel had shot both his wife and himself.
“Our biggest concern is who was shot by whom,” he said, explaining that uncovering a motive is only a secondary concern. He said he hoped that further conversation with the Stockels’ family would provide an explanation for the Stockels’ deaths, but that county homicide detectives felt it “was not pressing that we intrude on them at this point.”