NYPD investigating potential murder-suicide on SI that family says followed years of turmoil

Family and neighbors of two people found dead in a Staten Island home say the deaths may have occurred days before the bodies were discovered and followed instability and strife within the family of one of the people who died.

Police said they found a man and woman dead in the two-story home on Amador Street and Amity Place in Graniteville around 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday. The man had no apparent signs of trauma and the woman had been stabbed multiple times, NYPD officials said.

Laura Guidone said the people were her great-nephew, James Guidone, 37, and his live-in girlfriend. A reporter was at her home on Wednesday when she got a call from the office of the city's chief medical examiner notifying her that James Guidone had been identified through his fingerprints.

Police on Thursday identified the woman found with Guidone as Priscilla Scarpati, 36, but had yet to confirm his name.

“I just can’t believe he did this,” Laura Guidone said. “I tried to help him, but in his mind, it was one way, that’s it. He wouldn’t listen to anything else. He was worried about the house, the mortgage and how he’s gonna pay it.”

She said her great-nephew had a recent argument with his girlfriend and was coping with the stress of trying to care for his brother and father, who were struggling with substance use. The patriarch of the house, Anthony Guidone, died in May, leaving the younger generations to take care of everything themselves, Laura Guidone said.

James Guidone had worked as an MTA bus driver until about a year-and-a-half ago, when he was laid off after being arrested over a scuffle with his father, according to his great-aunt. She said he then got a job driving a school bus for Staten Island College.

MTA spokesperson Aaron Donovan confirmed that Guidone worked as a bus driver for the agency, starting in March 2022. But he said MTA records showed that Guidone resigned on his own accord in September 2023 and cited “personal reasons.” He was not subject to disciplinary action or an investigation at the time, Donovan said.

“[His mental state] was so bad,” Laura Guidone said. “Every time I went there [to visit him], I had to hold him and hug him.”

She showed Gothamist weeks of text messages with James Guidone, which became increasingly desperate toward the end of July as he expressed worries about his brother’s instability and the argument with his girlfriend.

“And then I didn’t hear from him,” his great-aunt said. “I kept asking him, ‘How is everything?’”

James Guidone stopped answering her around Aug. 9, according to the texts. She said she suspected that was when he killed himself, and when she couldn’t reach him days later, she called the police to request a wellness check.

James Guidone's longtime neighbor Glen Vosbrink said Laura Guidone knocked on his door on Tuesday, looking for her great-nephew.

“She goes, ‘Oh, have you seen him?’” Vosbrink said. “She wanted to try to get in the house, because [there was] no answer. There was like five days’ worth of mail, and that’s when she knew.”

Vosbrink said he was shocked to hear about the deaths, even though the house had long been a source of commotion on the block.

“All the neighbors knew, because the cops were always here,” he said. “It was only going to get worse.”

Police did not respond to a request for information about their previous visits to the house and did not immediately confirm if they were investigating the deaths as a murder-suicide.

“The doors were locked, no one could have gotten in,” Laura Guidone said, adding that police found James Guidone’s cat dead at the scene as well. “He went through a lot, that kid. I tried to help him about as much as I could.”