Skidmore grad involved in downstate murder-suicide

PHOTOGRAPHER: The Associated Press

A family of four was found dead in their sprawling home in an affluent suburb after what appeared to be a murder-suicide, state police said.

The bodies of Amy and Sam Friedlander and their children, 8-year-old Gregory and 10-year-old Molly, were discovered in their four-bedroom, blue-gray, Colonial-style house Tuesday afternoon, according to police Maj. Michael Kopy.

A neighbor told WCBS-TV that the couple was getting a divorce.

On Wednesday, police parked their vehicles in front of the home and challenged anyone who tried to linger; crime-scene tape was grimly stretched across the driveway.

The Journal News cited a May 2000 wedding announcement in The New York Times that described Amy Friedlander as a vice president for Chase Manhattan Bank. It said she most recently was a partner in an academic and college test prep tutoring service.

The wedding announcement said her husband was an associate counsel of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners in Manhattan. Officials at Skidmore College confirmed that Sam Friedlander was a 1983 graduate with a bachelor’s degree in government.

The neighborhood, called Michelle Estates, was developed by financier Carl Icahn and has homes valued at around $800,000 to $1 million, the Journal News reported.

The Friedlanders’ home, listed for sale at $799,000, is located on a long, looping road that features some even larger houses on elegantly landscaped properties. But it’s clearly a family neighborhood: Some residents have decorated for Halloween, with pumpkins on their porches and fake spider webs across the shrubs.

The Lewisboro school district said the children attended its elementary school.

Lewisboro Police Chief Frank Secret said he knew of no reports of domestic violence.

“This is devastating in our community,” he said. “This is something we are not used to.”