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At midday on Wednesday, Dallas police and firefighters broke down the front door of a small townhome in the 1800 block of Browder Street in the Cedars to perform a welfare check. Inside, they found the bodies of Nick and Vanessa Pitofsky, both dead of gunshot wounds.
Police are describing the slayings as a murder-suicide. Pitofsky, a 47-year-old Crandall police officer, allegedly shot his wife of three years, then turned the gun on himself.
Police haven’t specified a motive, though Fox 4’s Natalie Solis says friends of Vanessa Pitofsky described her husband as “very jealous,” though what sparked the jealousy, and if that’s what prompted Pitofsky to allegedly pull the trigger, is unclear.
The Dallas Morning News spoke with neighbors of the Pitofskys, who were surprised by the murder-suicide, but not overly so. Vanessa, 42, was social and active in the neighborhood. Nick the paper describes as “very focused and intense.”
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Crandall PD issued a statement describing Pitofsky as an “energetic and jovial person who got along with everyone” and was “well-respected by his peers.”
Inevitably a couple of outlets, including the U.K.’s Daily Mail, searched out the YouTube video Pitofsky posted a few days earlier reviewing his new Mossberg 500 shotgun.
In retrospect, his endorsement sounds rather ominous: “I purchased this as a self-defense weapon for my household, essentially for my wife.”
Send your story tips to the author, Eric Nicholson.
