By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
Investigators in Pennsylvania are now looking at the New Hampshire man who confessed to shooting his wife and cutting up her body for possible connection to the 2009 murder of his step-mother.
Young Hee Lim-Ferlazzo was stabbed to death at her home in Upper Gwynedd Township in October of 2009. Her husband, Joseph Ferlazzo Sr. was questioned by police but the case remains open, according to authorities.
Joseph Ferlazzo Jr., 41, is being held without bail on a first-degree murder charge for killing his wife, Emily Schwarz Ferlazzo, 22, during their first anniversary vacation. Joseph Ferlazzo Jr. confessed to the murder, according to court records, but he pleaded not guilty in court on Wednesday.
Kate Delano, director of communications for the Montgomery County Pennsylvania District Attorney’s Office, said Thursday the 2009 case remains under investigation.
“Montgomery County Detectives are aware of the murder in Vermont,” Delano said.
Jospeh Ferlazzo Sr. owned a massage parlor in Reading, Pennsylvania, that had been raided by police in May of 2009, according to news accounts. Police arrested multiple women on charges of prostitution, including a female relative of Young Hee Lim-Ferlazzo who reportedly worked as the massage parlor’s manager.
Joseph Ferlazzo Sr. told police he had returned to his home from grocery shopping after midnight on the night of the murder and discovered the body of his wife. Joseph Ferlazzo Sr. did not respond to a request for comment, and no arrests have been made.
Joseph Ferlazzo Jr. worked as a tattoo artist in Maine before he met Emily Schwarz Ferlazzo, a registered nurse. Prudy Schwarz, Emily Schwarz Ferlazzo’s stepmother, told mychampalinvalley.com that she never liked Joseph Ferlazzo Jr.
“I said it’s something with his eyes; he looks evil in his eyes,” she told Mychamplainvalley.com.
Prudy Schwarz did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Emily Schwarz Ferlazzo’s mother, Adrienne Bass.
Adrienne Bass and her husband, Davis Bass, reported Emily Schwarz Ferlazzo missing on Monday after Joseph Ferlazzo Jr. returned to New Hampshire from the anniversary vacation without his wife, according to the affidavit filed in Chittenden County Superior Court by Vermont State Police Detective Sgt. James Vooris. Adrienne Bass told police her daughter has been the victim of domestic violence in the past.
The Northfield, New Hampshire, couple was vacationing at an AirBNB property in their converted camper in Vermont, starting last weekend.
Joseph told his in-laws the couple argued and that Emily Ferlazzo told him she was taking an Uber back to New Hampshire, according to the affidavit.
Police in Vermont found the camper, and soon had Joseph Ferlazzo Jr. in custody. He told police he argued with Emily Schwarz Ferlazzo on Saturday, and she was hitting and kicking him, particularly in the groin, Vooris wrote. The fight ended with Emily Ferlazzo going to lie down. Joseph Ferlazzo waited five to 10 minutes, got his Glock 19 pistol, jumped on top of his wife, and shot her two times in the head, he told police.
He put a garbage bag on her head, and then put her body into the camper bathroom. Next, he went to have breakfast with his sister and her boyfriend, he told police.
After breakfast, Joseph Ferlazzo moved the camper to another location, and then proceeded to dismember his wife, cutting her feet, legs, arms, and head from her body with a hand saw, and putting each body part into a separate garbage bag, he told police.