Three people were found shot dead inside a home in North Royalton, Ohio, on Tuesday night after a woman told police she could not reach her parents and had spotted her estranged ex-husband's car parked outside their house — a car she said was “not welcome” there. Officers who went inside found the couple, Sorin Ciortan and Emilia Ciortan, both 71, dead with apparent gunshot wounds to the head. A tactical team that searched the house afterwards found the third man, Stefan Pascu, 71 — the daughter's estranged ex-husband — dead on the lower level with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound and a firearm nearby, according to the North Royalton Police Department.
Source: North Royalton Police Department via PEOPLE
North Royalton is a suburban city in Cuyahoga County, about 21 miles south of Cleveland. The home is in the 8900 block of Tiffany Drive, a residential street where neighbours reported hearing a commotion on Tuesday evening before police arrived, according to reporting by WEWS, the ABC affiliate in Cleveland.
The call that brought police to Tiffany Drive
Police were dispatched at about 7:57 p.m. on Tuesday, November 10, after the daughter reported that she had been unable to reach her parents and had seen her estranged ex-husband's car outside their home, the police department said in a press release. She told officers the man was “not welcome” at the address — the report officers were sent to investigate was logged as an “unwanted guest” call.
When officers could not make contact with the homeowners, they went inside. Sorin Ciortan was found dead upstairs and Emilia Ciortan was found dead in the dining room, police said; both had apparent gunshot wounds to the head. Officers then pulled back out of the house, because the ex-husband's car was still parked in the driveway and his whereabouts were unknown — a sign, in the first officers' judgement, that he could still be inside.
The tactical search and the third body
A tactical unit from the Southwest Enforcement Bureau — the regional SWAT team that serves suburbs in the Cleveland area — then entered and searched the home. During that search, officers found Stefan Pascu dead in the lower level of the house. Police said he had an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head and that a firearm was found nearby. The first Associated Press account, based on the police statement, described the same sequence: two bodies found on the first entry, officers retreating after noticing the vehicle they believed belonged to the unwanted guest in the driveway, and a SWAT team later discovering the third body.
Source: Associated Press via WEWS reporting
Video recorded at the scene by WEWS appeared to show several broken windows at the front of the residence and the front door knocked off its hinges. Police did not release information on Tuesday night about how the three people died; the fuller account of the wounds came in the department's press release as the investigation continued.
Who the three people were
The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office identified the three on Wednesday morning as Emilia Ciortan, Sorin Ciortan and Stefan Pascu, and confirmed that all three were 71 years old. According to police, the Ciortans were the homeowners and the parents of the woman who called; Pascu was her estranged ex-husband, and police said he is suspected of being the “unwanted guest” the original call was about. Beyond that relationship, police said on Wednesday that how the three were connected and what happened inside the house remained under investigation.
“That situation is now secure and there is no threat to public safety,” the North Royalton Police Department said in its statement on Tuesday night. The department has not announced any search for another person in connection with the deaths.
Background: what an “unwanted guest” call can hide
Calls logged as an unwanted guest or an unwanted person are among the most routine dispatches in suburban policing — often a former partner, relative or acquaintance who has been told to leave and has not. Most end with a warning and a departure. Investigators in cases like this one typically work backwards from the scene itself: the medical examiner establishes the cause and manner of each death, detectives reconstruct who entered the house and when, and the firearm found at the scene is tested and traced. Police have not said whether there were earlier calls to the Tiffany Drive address, and no such history should be assumed until the department releases it.
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI), the state agency that assists local departments with major crime scenes and forensic work, is assisting with the investigation, according to local reporting. North Royalton, a city of roughly 30,000 people, rarely sees a triple-death investigation, and the Tiffany Drive case drew officers, investigators and television crews to the quiet street through Tuesday night.
What happens next
The investigation remains open. The medical examiner's office will complete its determinations on the cause and manner of the three deaths, BCI and North Royalton detectives will continue processing the house and the evidence collected inside it, and police are expected to release further findings once the family notifications and the forensic work are complete. Anyone with information about the events on Tiffany Drive on Tuesday evening is being directed to the North Royalton Police Department. This report will be updated when the department or the medical examiner releases confirmed findings; details attributed to police above are the department's account, and the full sequence of events inside the home has not yet been officially established.