• Posted on Thursday, July 7, 2011
  • Bookmark and Share
  • email
  • |
  • print
  • |
  • rss

tool name

close
tool goes here

Police: Jilted woman stabbed, shot and beat Florida millionaire to death

email this story print this story jump to comments

Apparently enraged by a potential breakup with a Fort Lauderdale multimillionaire, Catherine Marie Pileggi took deadly revenge, investigators say.

Pileggi, a onetime pilot, also blamed him for the death of her sister years earlier, police said.

Pileggi is accused of shooting Ronald C. Vinci in the head, stabbing him in the chest, slitting his throat, wrapping him in bedding and plastic bags – and then plotting to drop his body in the ocean.

She was held without bond Wednesday.

“This is a brutal, brutal murder," police spokesman Detective Travis Mandell said. "I can’t imagine someone else doing this to another human being."

According to the arrest affidavit, Pileggi told one of Vinci’s friends: “I messed him up bad.’’

The admission was made to Spencer Gordon, who discovered the body at a mansion the couple shared in the upscale Tarpon River neighborhood, according to the arrest affidavit released by Fort Lauderdale police. Gordon had been called by the couple’s handyman the morning of June 28.

Vinci, 70, whose riches came from successful car dealerships, had an on-and-off relationship with Pileggi, 54, for two decades.

The dead man is now a central figure in a bizarre family drama that also involves his lover’s late sister, Angela Pileggi Silverstein. She died suddenly at the age of 45, possibly from a drug overdose, while on a Caribbean cruise with the couple in December 2009.

Read the complete story at miamiherald.com

  • Bookmark and Share
  • email
  • |
  • print
  • |
  • rss

tool name

close
tool goes here
JOIN THE DISCUSSION

We welcome comments. To post one, you must sign in using either your McClatchyDC login or your login for Facebook, Twitter or Disqus. Just click the appropriate box below.

Please keep your comment civil, short and to the point. Obscene, profane, abusive and off topic comments will be deleted. Repeat offenders will be blocked. If you find a comment abusive or inappropriate, please flag it for the moderator by placing your cursor on the comment, then clicking the "flag" link that appears. Thanks for your participation.

Stay Connected

Sign up for email newsletters RSS
Follow us on your iPhone Follow us on your Android device
Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Follow us using Google Currents

LEGAL AFFAIRS BLOG

Suits & Sentences

"Suits & Sentences" is written by Mike Doyle, who covers the Supreme Court for McClatchy's Washington Bureau. Send a story suggestion.