A man charged in connection with the double homicide of his Maryland neighbors was taken into custody Saturday by the Juneau Police Department.
Scott Michael Tomaszewski is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of Richard and Julianne Vilardo, found dead in their Rockville, Maryland home on Sunday, May 10. Tomaszewski is also charged with two counts of armed robbery and one count of first-degree burglary, according to the Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland.
Tomaszewski was a neighbor of the Vilardo’s, police say, and “had been given access to the home by the Vilardo family as a caretaker while they were gone.” As detectives investigated the double homicide, they learned there had been a previous burglary of the Vilardo home in 1998. Additionally, detectives learned that in April 2015, there had been another burglary at a different residence in the neighborhood. Evidence revealed that Tomaszewski had pawned items related to that burglary.
This led investigators to serve a warrant at the Tomaszewski residence Saturday, for evidence of the April burglary. Also on Saturday, in Juneau, three Montgomery County detectives, Juneau police and other authorities, found Tomaszewski on a cruise ship docked near the 800 block of South Franklin Street.
Police say evidence linking Tomaszewski to the burglary and the murders — including money with “possible blood on it” that was believed to have come from the Vilardo home — was discovered in his Juneau cabin and at his home in Rockville.
JPD took Tomaszewski into custody, and ”while being questioned, Tomaszewski confessed to killing Richard and Julianne Vilardo,” Montgomery County police say.
A statement from the Vilardo family reads:
We would like to acknowledge and thank Sgt. Larry Haley and Det. Carvajal and their team with the Montgomery County Police Department for their remarkable detective work which took them from Rockville, Maryland all the way to Juneau, Alaska. They have worked tirelessly, around-the-clock, since this horrific crime was reported last Sunday and we are deeply appreciative of their efforts. [...] For the past week, we have known the where, the when and the how; now we know who. And, while we may never truly understand why, as a result of the work of the police department and the prosecutors’ office, we can take the first step on the long road to healing.
Tomaszewski will soon be transported to Montgomery County for arraignment, police say.