Left: Amy Vilardi; Right: Rosmore “Ross” Vilardi. (Anderson County Sheriff’s Office)
A married South Carolina couple has been charged in the stabbing and shooting deaths of four members of their family.
Amy Vilardi and Rosmore “Ross” Vilardi each stand accused of four counts of murder over the Halloween 2015 slayings of Cathy Scott, Michael Scott, Barbara Scott, and Violet Taylor. The victims — each stabbed and shot — were Amy Vilardi’s mother, father-in-law, grandmother-in-law, and maternal grandmother.
The Vilardis were arrested on Friday after being named persons of interest in the case by the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office in March.
“I think we knew this day would come,” Anderson County Sheriff Chad McBride said at a Friday press conference. “You know it’s — I think we knew in the back of our mind, it was just, you know, there’s a lot of pieces to have to put together and just a lot of hard work and effort.”
The victims’ bodies were discovered by police on Nov. 2, 2015 — days after they were killed. Amy Vilardi allegedly made the 911 call that day.
Law enforcement is keeping mum about the overwhelming majority of the evidence used to make the case against the couple.
The sheriff described the daughter allegedly reporting the grim find and ensuing 911 call as “the foundation of the case” but was largely reticent to disclose additional details about the murders and investigation. Instead, he implored the media to attend the courtroom proceedings and suggested any information that he divulged to the press might be used against the state by the defense.
“They were senselessly and brutally murdered,” McBride went on to say during the press conference. “It was a bad scene. It was probably what some of our folks would probably say was one of the worst things they’d ever seen. It was gruesome. It was gory. And it was just a devastating scene to see.”
The Vilardis lived on the same property as the victims at the time of the killings but in a separate house on Refuge Road in Pendleton, a small town that borders Clemson, the namesake of the public university well-known for its NCAA football team.
“It’s a huge case for our county and for the citizens of this county,” McBride said. “It rocked everybody to the core and it was a scary case. It was brutal murders. Senseless.”
The Vilardis gave media interviews in the aftermath.
“When I went to knock on the back door, the door just pushed open so I walked in and it was dark and I just flipped on the light and there they were,” Amy Vilardi told Greenville-based NBC affiliate WYFF.
According to the coroner, there were no signs of breaking and entering, WYFF reported.
“We were praying this day would come and, you know, so far, we’ve had some really big prayers answered,” McBride added.
The defendants appeared for an initial hearing on Saturday morning, where they were denied bond. They are both being detained in the Anderson County Detention Center. The case is being prosecuted by the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office.
No motive for the killings has been floated so far.
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