The Associated Press
BRENTWOOD, N.H. - Calandra Staszewski woke up in the middle of the night and heard her mother scream, “Get out of the house! Call 911! Your brother is going insane.”
She saw her mother kneeling in front of the couch, holding her brother down. Blood was coming from her mother’s shoulder.
Calandra, 13, grabbed a phone, ran to the garage and locked herself in a car. She called 911.
When police arrived Thursday, they saw Richard Staszewski, who was naked, walking along the street with blood dripping from his arms. He yelled, “Just shoot me!” and that he had stabbed his mother and that she was dead.
Richard Staszewski, 21, was later charged with second-degree murder in the death of the children’s mother, Nickoletta Staszewski, 47, a sixth-grade teacher at Nock Middle School in Newburyport, Mass. He was arraigned Friday in Exeter District Court and held without bail.
Staszewski said nothing in court. He had a black eye and his hands were bandaged.
Police found the mother’s body on the dining room floor with a pool of blood near her side and a kitchen knife nearby. Blood also was found on the stairs inside the house. A room on the third floor had a computer on, with a pornographic video showing, a police affidavit said. Another blood-covered knife was on the floor.
Richard Staszewski gave police different accounts of what happened. In one, he said he came home early Thursday after driving around and smoking pot and argued with his mother. According to Staszewski, she said he needed to stop being a leech and needed to find a job. She pushed him, he grabbed a knife and stabbed her in the throat. In another account, he said he tried to kill himself but couldn’t, went to see his mother, who was watching TV, and stabbed her.
Staszewski said afterward, he broke windows in the house and a car because he was upset.
Staszewski was arrested at Exeter Hospital, where police took him after arresting him at the home.
Neighbor Paul Wilson told the New Hampshire Union Leader Staszewski had a butcher knife in his hand as officers approached. He said the suspect was screaming: “I am invincible! I am invincible.”