Thomas Mangiantini coached one of his two sons in youth baseball for years. A few days ago, his wife, Elizabeth, placed modest decorations of a Santa Claus and Merry Christmas ribbon on the stoop of the family’s beige home on South Wisconsin Avenue in Addison. Two nights before Thanksgiving, a friend bumped into Elizabeth at the local grocery store shopping for the holiday meal.
It all looked quintessentially suburban. But at about 6:30 the morning after that friendly encounter at the food store, a woman believed to be Elizabeth Mangiantini was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher notifying police that someone was shooting inside the house. Gunfire could be heard in the background, a source close to the investigation said.
When police arrived minutes later Wednesday, they had to force open locked doors. Inside, they found four bodies. The bodies have not officially been identified, but according to sources, police believe that three bodies found upstairs were those of Thomas Mangiantini, 48, and sons Angelo, 11, and Tommy Jr., 7. A fourth body was found on the ground floor, and police believe it was that of Elizabeth Mangiantini, 46, the sources said..
Authorities recovered a handgun at the scene.
“There’s no explaining it without being a psychologist or anything like that,” said Steve Nelms, vice president of the Addison Recreation Club, who said Thomas Mangiantini had coached youth baseball for the organization since about 2004. “The community’s losing a great family, regardless of how it ended.”
While stopping short of calling it murder-suicide, police sought to reassure the public that there was no concern of a wider threat to the community. Addison police Chief Tim Hayden said the shooting “was not a random act of violence, but an isolated incident at this location.”
“The caller made a statement to the effect she needed help,” Hayden added. “It was a call for help … with urgency.”
The DuPage County coroner’s office said it planned to perform an autopsy Thursday, when an official identification of the bodies is expected.
No one saw an eruption coming for the Mangiantinis, friends and neighbors said. A preliminary check of criminal cases showed Thomas Mangiantini had none, and police said they had never been called to the home, where the Mangiantinis had lived for about 15 years.
Those who knew the family recalled that Thomas Mangiantini, an avid fisherman and outdoorsman, frequently took hunting, fishing and camping trips with his sons to Michigan. Mangiantini kept a gun safe in the house but only he knew the combination, friend Jacque Graziano said. He taught his boys how to shoot the guns, she added.
At times, neighbors would see him giving his boys rides through neighborhood on his four-wheel, all-terrain vehicle. On Halloween, the couple accompanied their sons trick-or-treating. On any given evening, the Mangiantinis would hold neighborhood gatherings around a fire pit Thomas Mangiantini built in the family driveway.
Antonio Graziano, 11, a close friend of Angelo Mangiantini’s, was excited about going to the Mangiantini house Wednesday afternoon to play video games with Angelo, Jacque Graziano said. When she gave him the news of the Mangiantinis’ deaths, her son was in shock, Graziano said.
“First, I didn’t believe it,” Antonio said. “It’s hard to explain no feeling. You can’t imagine now your friend — both your friends — were murdered.”
Thomas Mangiantini “worshipped the kids,” Jacque Graziano said. She recalled he once canceled a “boys weekend” camping trip after Angelo swelled up with a skin rash. “If something had happened to you,” she recalled him saying to Angelo, “I would feel sick.”
“So,” Graziano said, “how does somebody like that then turn something like this? I don’t get it.”
Angelo, she said, “loved life. He was full of life — a prankster, a joker, but down-to-earth, very respectful.” Like his father, Angelo was enthralled by her husband Rick Graziano’s Ford Mustangs, Jacque Graziano recalled.
Nelms, the local recreation club vice president, also noted that Angelo was respectful toward adults. Baseball teammates nominated him to play in the league’s All-Star game last summer.
“He was just a happy kid,” Nelms said.
Thomas Mangiantini “probably coached hundreds of different kids,” said Nelms. Officials never witnessed violent, impatient or other questionable actions from Mangiantini, Nelms added.
“It’s just so counter to his personality,” he said. “He was just everything for his kids.”
Last week, Thomas Mangiantini dropped off paperwork from last summer’s team and “was in a good mood and kind of joking and kidding around,” said Nelms.
Thomas Mangiantini worked as a printer, said David Berndt, who lives across the street from the Mangiantini home. Elizabeth Mangiantini in about May lost her sales job at Ford Motor Co., where she had worked for more than a decade, neighbors said.
Jacque Graziano described the relationship between the Mangiantinis as “normal. You never saw them fight.” Graziano said.
“Something like this, I don’t know what could have led to the fact that it would be so bad that you would just end everybody, take everybody with you,” Graziano said. “Tom didn’t seem like that. Tom was always laughing.”
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