Lora “Lori” Grodnick was known as a mother who supported her daughter’s compassionate impulses. She and her husband, David Grodnick, an insurance executive and real estate attorney, lived with their daughter in the Princeton, New Jersey, area for years before moving to a large, stone-faced home in the Skillman section of Montgomery Township in 2021.
The family was well-known in the affluent community, holding memberships at the exclusive Bedens Brook Country Club and the TPC Jasna Polana golf club. Lora, 62, and David, 61, were often seen working together on their landscaping.
A memory from 2011, when the family lived in Princeton, captured a glimpse of their life. Their daughter, Sloane, then just nine years old, was moved by a news story about an abused and neglected girl in nearby Trenton. Sloane immediately began packing her own toys to give to the child. Lora recounted her daughter's words: "There's a little girl who has a horrible mommy and she needs my things." Lora gently guided her daughter's generosity, suggesting she and her Brownie Troop collect new items to donate instead.
Concerns for the family began to surface on Thursday, October 1, 2026. At about 3:00 p.m., a neighbor called for a wellness check at the Grodnicks' home on Wild Azalea Lane. The neighbor was worried because mail was piling up in the mailbox, and the family had not been responding to calls or texts. Montgomery Township Police officers responded but were unable to make contact with anyone inside. This followed an unusual 911 call for a residential glass-break alarm at the home at 4:30 a.m. the previous day, September 30.
After the initial unsuccessful attempt to reach the family, officers launched an investigation into their whereabouts. They returned to the residence the following evening. On Friday, October 2, at 5:52 p.m., police made entry into the house. Inside, they made a devastating discovery. Lora Grodnick and her 24-year-old daughter, Sloane, were found deceased in separate bedrooms. Both had suffered fatal gunshot wounds to the head. David Grodnick was also found deceased in the home from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound; a firearm was found with him.
Detectives from the Montgomery Township Police Department and the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crimes and Crime Scene Investigation Units responded to the scene, along with investigators from the New Jersey Northern Regional Medical Examiner’s Office. Medical personnel from Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital pronounced all three family members dead at the scene.
Following postmortem examinations, the medical examiner officially ruled Lora and Sloane Grodnick's deaths as homicides. David Grodnick's death was ruled a suicide. The Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office concluded that the deaths were the result of a double murder-suicide and stated it was an isolated incident with no further threat to the public. The motive for the tragedy has not been released.
In the months leading up to the incident, a neighbor had noticed a subtle change at the family's home. The once meticulously maintained lawn, which Lora and David often tended to themselves, had become unkempt. The neighbor found this unusual and disturbing, a small sign that something might have been wrong.
The case was declared solved with the death of the primary suspect, David Grodnick, as of October 2026. In the wake of the tragedy, friends of Sloane, a talented artist who was pursuing a master's degree at the Rhode Island School of Design, started a fundraiser to plant a tree and place a plaque in her memory at the Grounds for Sculpture in Trenton. Anyone with information related to the investigation was asked to contact the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crimes Unit at (908) 231-7100 or the Montgomery Police Department at (908) 359-3222.
