A father who married his own daughter and had a child with her has killed them both and then himself in an apparent murder-suicide in North Carolina.
He also killed his daughter's adoptive father in a rampage that spread over three US states, reports the NY Post.
It is thought that his incestuous relationship with his daughter had ended and prompted him to begin his murder spree.
Steven Pladl, 42, reportedly killed his son, three-year-old Bennett Pladl, in Henrico County, North Carolina, before driving to Connecticut, where he murdered his daughter and wife, Katie Rose Pladl, 20, and her adopted father, Anthony Fusco, 56.
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He then continued into New York State, where he is thought to have turned the gun on himself.
A radio station in North Carolina has acquired audio of the 9/11 made by Steven Pladl's mother, in which she told the police: "Oh God, he told me to call the police and I shouldn't go over there. He killed his baby and he's (baby) in the house. His wife broke up with him over the phone yesterday..." Pladl's mother continued. "I can't even believe this is happening."
Steven and Katie Pladl made international news in January when they were arrested on charges of incest. They had met as adults, when Katie tracked down her biological father.
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She had been given up for adoption when she was a baby and taken in by Anthony Fusco, whom she was with when she was killed.
After Katie found Steven and her mother, now his ex-wife, Alyssa, she moved in with them and began to call them Mom and Dad. She later began sleeping with Steven and seems to have married him last summer, before having a child by him.
Alyssa claims to have had no knowledge of the sexual relationship between her husband and her daughter until she discovered it by reading one of their other children's journals, which showed drawings of a pregnant Katie.
"My understanding is that when Katie Pladl and Steven Pladl were arrested, that my client's mother moved into that house to take care of their biological son," said Steven Pladl's lawyer, Rick Friedman.
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"If any judge or any prosecutor or defense attorney involved in any of these cases believed that the Pladl child would be in harm's way, there would not have been any bond. The professionals care too much about children."
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