More than eight years after a South Carolina couple was brutally killed in their home on Halloween night alongside their elderly mothers, one of the family members who gave a slew of tearful media interviews mourning the victims has just been charged with the crime.
Anderson County Sheriff Chad McBride announced the jaw-dropping conclusion of the case on Friday, telling reporters that Amy Vilardi and her husband, Rosmore “Ross” Vilardi, had been taken into custody and charged with the murders of Amy’s mother, Cathy Scott, 60; Cathy’s husband, Michael Scott, 59; Michael’s mother, Barbara Scott, 80; and Cathy’s mother, Violet Taylor, 82.
The four were found gunned down inside their Pendleton home on Nov. 2, 2015, after Amy Vilardi, the daughter of Cathy and granddaughter of Violet, called 911 to report that she’d stopped by and discovered her loved ones slain. She went on to give a flurry of media interviews expressing her shock and horror at the murders of such “wonderful people” who “just didn’t deserve this.”
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In one interview with 7News, she complained about being kept in the dark on the investigation and demanded “answers” about who was behind the murders, saying: “I understand [investigators] have a job to do, but sometimes as family members we want answers and we just want to know what’s going on.”
Police now say she and her husband knew exactly who the murderers were all along.
“God bless this family. They have been through so much and they have waited so long,” Sheriff McBride said, adding that it was one of the most brutal crime scenes investigators had ever seen. “It’s a huge case for our county and for the citizens of this county. It rocked everybody to the core and it was a scary case,” McBride said.
Authorities have not revealed a motive or specified what exactly led them to make the arrest after all these years, but in the wake of the murders, The Daily Mail reported that Vilardi had been involved in a dispute with her mother and had banned her from seeing her grandchildren. That report also said investigators were looking into whether Michael Scott’s side job of buying and selling gold had anything to do with the murders.
The couple appeared in court on Saturday and were denied bond. Their next hearing is scheduled for Feb. 20, 2024.
