The silence was shattered in Addison, IL early Wednesday morning, but it wasn’t train whistles or traffic on the freeway. It was the sound of gunfire. Addison, a village located southwest of O’Hare International off the Eisenhower Expressway, and home to nearly 39,000, didn’t hear gunfire very often. In fact, according to City Data, there were eight homicides between 2003 and 2007. Wednesday morning’s murders totaled half that number. The Daily Herald Reported:
An Addison man active in his community opened fire Wednesday on his family before killing himself in a murder-suicide captured on the wife’s desperate 911 call, authorities said.
Tom Mangiantini, aged 48, is suspected of killing his two sons, Tommy and Angelo, aged 8 and 11, as well as his wife, Elizabeth, aged 46. After murdering his family, the man turned the gun on himself. Although police have not identified the bodies officially, sources state that it was the Mangiantini family. Police arrived shortly after the 911 call and had to break into the house. Upon entering, they discovered the victims, along with a handgun and spent shell casings.
Autopsies were expected to be performed sometime this morning, and at the time of this writing, there were no known issues with the family. The Mangiantini’s were actively involved with the community of Addison, and had been living in the same home for at least 15-years. Neighbor interviewed stated that it was business as usual and that there did not seem to be any underlying turmoil. A police records check showed that none of the family members had ever been in trouble with the law, and that there were no reports of domestic, or child, abuse. There also wasn’t any evidence of divorce proceedings or legal matters to help make sense of the terrible crime.
The Addison community is stunned, totally baffled by the fact that the family was always loving, never seemed to argue or fight, and was tightly-knit; especially Mr. Mangiantini and his two boys. Angelo and Tommy were described as normal kids that played baseball on a team coached by their father. One community member stated that Mr. Mangiantini had coached 100s of boys throughout the years. WGN Radio interviewed Jacque Graziano, whose son was close to Angelo;
Thomas Mangiantini “worshipped the kids,” Jacque Graziano said. She recalled he once canceled a “boys weekend” camping trip after Angelo swelled up with a skin rash. “If something had happened to you,” she recalled him saying to Angelo, “I would feel sick.”
“So,” Graziano said, “how does somebody like that then turn something like this? I don’t get it.”
