Nicholas Donofrio, the ex-hooper and University of South Carolina student who was shot dead early Saturday morning after he tried to enter the wrong home, was brand new to his neighborhood—having moved onto the same street he was killed on just last week, his parents told WTNH 8.
It’s the latest detail to suggest Donofrio, 20, a sophomore member of the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity, may have mistaken someone else’s home as his own.
Cops said they responded to reports of a burglary and shooting around 2 a.m. Saturday, arriving to find Donofrio lying dead on the porch of a home adjacent to the university’s campus in Columbia—just houses away from where Donofrio lived with three friends. He’d been shot in the upper body.
His parents said they’re heartbroken and in disbelief, telling WTNH 8 that Donofrio was “a great son, loving, compassionate, all the traits you would want.”
They said Donofrio, a Connecticut native, was a former basketball player at the University of New England who loved working out. He’d transferred to South Carolina’s flagship university last year and was studying exercise science.
Jimmy Economopoulos, Donofrio’s high school basketball coach, told CT Insider that Donofrio was the team’s captain his senior year and was a “smart, engaging, charismatic young man.”
“It’s heartbreaking,” Economopoulos said. “When [I heard] the news, my heart just sank.”
No charges have been filed in Donofrio’s death, which cops are still probing.
Read it at WTNH
