BERGEN BEACH - An elderly Brooklyn man apparently shot his wife and then turned the gun on himself in a Saturday morning murder-suicide, police sources said.
Police responded to a report of a gunshot at 1277 E. 69th St. in Bergen Beach around 7:15 a.m., officials said.
Cops found Vincent Tropeano, age 74, and Elain Tropeano, age 63, dead inside a first-floor bedroom of their home, police said.
Both had suffered gunshot wounds to the head and a gun was recovered from the scene, police said.
Neighbors said Vincent Tropeano may have snapped because his wife and son were both ill.
“His wife has had [multiple sclerosis] for a few years,” said Eileen Brucker, who said Vincent Tropeano was not a "crazy man" but dedicated to caring for his wife.
Her husband, Lou Brucker, said he spoke with Vincent Tropeano for half an hour on Friday after Elain Tropeano returned from an extended stay at a rehab hospital.
“He was very distraught and nervous about the finances and his wife’s sickness,” said Lou Brucker, 80, who has been Vincent Tropeano’s friend for more than 30 years. “He kept pacing back and forth.
“I feel definitely something has been going wrong. I told him just leave the house for a few hours.”
Neighbors said adding to Vincent Tropeano’s burden was the fact that his son had suffered a serious spinal injury in a car accident several years ago.
“Things just caught up to him,” Brucker said.
Even as a long-time friend, Brucker only met Tropeano’s wife once 10 years ago.
“It was in a restaurant and she was handicapped at that time already,” he said.
