Hello friends, in this episode Tierney tells us all about the filicide of Gabriel Zetzsche. It’s another case that has close personal ties to Tierney as one of her closest friends, Nina, lives in the apartment where it all happened.
In addition to giving us this case to cover, Nina also gave us the drink that perfectly fits a crime that happened in Westerlo, New York. Nina describes Westerlo as “sometimes all out of control, but most of the time it goes down smooth,” which is what led her to suggest a whiskey sour.
What you’re gonna do is pour some of your favorite whiskey over ice and then add in some sour mix and top with a garnish of your choice. Enjoy responsibly! You’re gonna need to drink up for this rough one.
Our story begins on the morning of Monday July 30th, 2012, at approximately 8:30am when Tracy Zetsche was discovered sitting on her front porch wrapped in a blanket with such a distraught look on her face that her sister-in-law took notice and went to check on her.
At some point in their conversation, Tracy Zetsche made a comment that she was worried about her son, more specifically that something was wrong with him. Tracy’s son, Gabriel, suffered from cerebral palsy and had a deformed right arm. Despite this, Gabriel lived a good life, and him and his mother Tracy were very close. Because of his disability, although Gabriel was 22, he was completely dependent on his mother. She was described as being his whole world. He would always need a caregiver, and Tracy was always that for him. They were extremely close.
The sister-in-law and Gabriel’s aunt, was also concerned for her nephew, especially after seeing Tracy’s odd behavior. When she entered the apartment to check on him, she found his lifeless body lying in a pool of blood on the apartment floor.
When authorities arrived on the scene, they determined that Gabriel’s body had been lying on the floor of the apartment for 5 days. No murder weapon was found inside the apartment. Gabe’s death was initially ruled “suspicious.”
Unfortunately, Tracy was not much help to detectives as she claimed to not remember anything. Of course, this didn’t make a lot of sense to the police since it had already been determined that she had been living in the same apartment as her son’s dead body for 5 days.
It is important to note that at Tracy’s questioning, detectives discovered noticeable bruising and lacerations on her arms, which to them may have been a sign that Gabriel had become violent. When asked about this, Tracy said she didn’t remember how she obtained these injuries. She said the last thing she remembered was watching the Yankees game on July 22nd, and everything between then and when her sister-in-law arrived at the crime scene was a blur. She remembered nothing.
With no help from Tracy, the police had to turn to the autopsy results in order to try and figure out what happened to Gabriel. The autopsy report determined that despite the multiple skull fractures he had suffered from blunt force trauma, the actual cause of death was a stab wound to his chest. This officially changed the investigation of his death from “suspicious” to “homicide”.
In an attempt to find out some more about the mother-son pair that lived above the deli, the police also questioned their landlord, Peter Rufa. What he had to say put the life of the Zetsche’s into perspective. Tracy had recently lost her job from two different restaurants. The family had little to no money and Rufa had given them until the end of June to move out, since they could no longer pay the rent. About 3 days before the end of June, Gabriel went down to the deli below their apartment that Rufa owned and Rufa asked Gabriel how the move was going. He hadn’t seen any boxes or trucks, and wanted to make sure that they were on the way out. Gabriel reportedly had no idea they were supposed to be moving because Tracy hadn’t said a thing to him. She did keep coming up with excuses when talking to Rufa though, including things like “the moving truck was going to be here but it broke down, etc. etc.” Rufa allowed them to pay day by day until they could move out, until one day a $25 check from Tracy bounced. They were completely broke.
Upon searching the dumpster next to the apartment, police found the murder weapons: a hammer and a knife that was extremely bent. There were also blood-soaked sheets and clothes in the garbage bag. When tested, the blood matched both Gabriel and Tracy.
Tracy was convicted of the murder of her son, Gabriel Philby-Zetsche and was sentenced to 18-20 years in prison, a crime she says she still cannot remember committing.
An article in the Altamont Enterprise, a local Westerlo newspaper, discusses how important it is to monitor the mental health not only of disabled individuals, but also of their caretakers. It is believed by some that the task of caring for her son simply became too much for Tracy and she snapped. The article then discusses “the five fillicides.” For those who don’t know, fillicide is just a term for when a parent kills their own child. This term was coined by Dr. Phillip Resnick, and his ideas as well as his data are quoted often throughout this article.
Resnick states that one of every 33 homicides is a filicide, which is an insane number to me. He explains that there are 5 different types.
The five fillicides are as follows.
- Altruistic-or “out of love.” Resnick breaks this down into two subcategories–extended suicide, where the parent is depressed and will take their child with them to what they believe is a better place for both of them, and the second being where the parent believes the child would be better off dead, in cases where parents believe their child is possesed by the devil or extremely ill and does it as a form of euthanasia to end their suffering.
- The least common type of filicide is spousal revenge. Only making up about 4% of filicides, by the information from Resnick’s studies, this type of filicide happens when one parent is mad at the other, and kills the child to seek revenge on their spouse. This may happen in custody battles where a parent will use their child as a pawn.
- The third category is when the child is unwanted. The case that Resnick discusses to explain this type is that a woman who was mentally disabled found a man who asked her to marry him, however he did not want to keep her children. She tried to bring them to an adoption agency, but when they wouldn’t take them, she murdered them with a hatchet.
- The fourth type of filicide is an accidental death, where a parent may be reprimanding a child and it goes terribly wrong. This mostly happens when a child is under 1 year of age.
- The last type of filicide is one that happens out of psychosis. There is no real reason for the murder, and can happen due to hallucinations, seizures, etc.
While these all seem pretty separate, Resnick explains that in most instances it is a combination of these that results in the death of child at the hands of their parents. Another interesting point that Resnick brings up is that most mothers will not kill their children with weapons unless it is a case of psychosis. Most mothers would poison, drown, suffocate, or use another type of less graphic method of murder when it came to types 1-4.
After reading through Resnick’s types of filicides, it is not that unbelievable that Tracy may have had a hallucination or some other kind of psychotic break that led her to murder her son, Gabriel. Although most likely a combination of Resnick’s ideas, it is easier for me to believe that this was an option after looking at his data.
And there is one more thing. Nina’s dad collected the garbage for the deli and for the apartment above while the Zetsches were living there and when this brutal murder took place. The Sunday following the murder, when he usually picked up the trash, he didn’t. Nina’s younger siblings were being baptized that day, and so he was busy. It is not confirmed by any news stories or articles, but it is believed that the reason she was sitting on the porch looking so distraught, is because she was looking to see if the trash would be picked up. If Nina’s dad had picked up the trash on Sunday as he normally did, he would have disposed of the murder weapons.
We hope you enjoyed this little Tierney Tale, especially since it had such an exciting personal connection to our storyteller. If you want to delve further into the psychology behind filicides or similar crimes, please feel free to listen to the episode or explore the sources outlined below. Also if you make the drink for this week please share it with us! We would love to see your cocktails!
Finally, we want to note that Tierney’s wonderful friend Nina, who suggested this case for us, is getting married this month to the creator of our theme song, Dalton. Congratulations to our favorite creepy couple!
Drink responsibly and always remember to check in on all your friends, even the strong ones, because you never know what they might be struggling with behind the scenes.
Bye, Mom!
Sources:
https://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Mother-I-don-t-remember-killing-son-4808961.php
https://patch.com/new-york/commack/commack-graduate-found-dead-in-upstate-apartment
https://patch.com/new-york/commack/autopsy-reveals-commack-grad-was-killed-body-left-for-5-days
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