On December 9, 2011, the life of 52-year-old White / Caucasian male Robert J. "Bob" Pizzuto of Arlington, Massachusetts, was tragically cut short in a violent domestic dispute that unfolded in Cambridge, Massachusetts. That evening, Cambridge Police responded to a report of gunshots at a single-family home on Grove Street. Inside the residence, they discovered a horrific scene: Robert, his older brother Patrick Pizzuto, 63, and their 91-year-old mother, Mary Pizzuto, had all been fatally
shot.
The investigation quickly identified the suspect as John "Jack" Brosnahan, 67, who was Mary's son-in-law and a retired Bedford police officer. Authorities believe an ongoing family disagreement escalated, leading Brosnahan to shoot and kill his mother-in-law and two brothers-in-law. After the killings, Brosnahan fled the scene.
Later that night, the search for the suspect came to a somber end. John Brosnahan was found deceased in Brighton, near the Charles River off Soldiers Field Road, from what was determined to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The Middlesex District Attorney's office concluded that Brosnahan was the sole perpetrator of the triple homicide, and with his death, the case was effectively closed as a murder-suicide. No arrests were made as the suspect had taken his own life.
Robert Pizzuto, a married father of two sons, was remembered as a devoted family man and a former part-owner of the Waltham Fruit Co. The community was left to mourn the sudden and devastating loss of three members of the Pizzuto family at the hands of a relative.
