Grandmother calls suicides of Florida deputies ‘tragic’

The grandmother of a Florida sheriff’s deputy who took her life days after her fellow-cop boyfriend killed himself — leaving their new child an orphan — likened the double suicide to a “tragic Romeo and Juliet story.”

“My coronary heart is so unhappy I assumed I used to be hurting earlier than I misplaced my lovely granddaughter,” St. Lucie County Deputy Victoria Pacheco’s grandmother Bernice Bartolini wrote on Fb.

“Tragic Romeo and Juliet story. They’re now collectively eternally,” she wrote. “This loss is so painful for everybody so please be sort and watch your loved ones hold them near your coronary heart.”

Bartolini continued: “Victoria and I had been very shut once I lived in Florida, she was there for me. I want I might have been there for her. My insides are being torn aside, my coronary heart hurts so dangerous.”

In an earlier submit, she stated she felt like she was “watching another person’s life in a film, can’t grasp the reasoning for this ache.”

Pacheco, 23, killed herself two days after the daddy of her baby, Deputy Clayton Osteen, died on Jan. 2.

Osteen, 24, who served within the US Marines, was awarded Deputy of the Yr in 2020, a yr after becoming a member of the division, WPTV reported, citing his personnel data.

He additionally saved somebody’s life after performing CPR on an individual who overdosed on medicine, in response to the information outlet.

Pacheco, who joined the pressure in 2020, acquired an award final yr for her involvement in additionally saving somebody who overdosed on medicine, the station added.

“Clayton and Victoria had been joy-filled, first-time mother and father enthusiastic about their rising household, enamored with their child Jayce, and so in love with one another,” an announcement says on a GoFundMe web page for the kid.

“Tragically, for causes fully unknown and completely out of character, Clayton took his personal life December thirty first, 2021. Reeling from the shock of loss, Victoria took her personal life two days later,” it continues.

Sheriff Ken Mascara stated this week that his workplace responded to a name simply earlier than midnight on New Yr’s Eve and located that Osteen, who was off responsibility, had tried to kill himself.

His household eliminated him from life assist Sunday, Mascara stated. On Tuesday, the workplace discovered of Pacheco’s suicide.