Overview
- Police discovered TV set decorator Mary Kate Golding fatally stabbed in her Astoria home around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday and found her husband, Joseph Azzaretto, hanging in Astoria Park about six hours later, and the couple’s 11-month-old son was recovered by a friend.
- NYPD investigators are treating the episode as a developing murder-suicide inquiry and are conducting forensic work, record checks and other routine verifications before making formal determinations.
- News outlets have published surveillance footage and cited unnamed law-enforcement sources saying Azzaretto calmly walked to a minivan after the killing and placed calls to a family member and a friend to confess, but those claims have not been publicly confirmed by police.
- Golding, 34, worked in television set decoration with credits listed online and the couple had moved to Astoria from Pennsylvania about two months earlier, according to neighbors and online profiles.
- Reports note a violent family history: Joseph’s brother Nicholas fatally shot their father in 2020 and later pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, a detail sources say investigators and reporters are using for context as the probe continues.