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CbabyRKO

Trumperdink Mussolini
The St. Petersburg community was left in shock after a well-known area couple were found dead in their home Friday evening, the result of a murder-suicide.

Gerard Joseph Stempinski, 69, an ex-cop turned financial adviser, shot his 72-year-old wife Marie, a businesswoman and former TV journalist, before turning the handgun on himself, police said.

The reason for the shooting is not yet known, although neighbors suggested that the once-active former cop had been 'down in the dumps' after separate injuries left him using a cane and his wife in a wheelchair, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

Police were called to the couple's home at 700 35th Avenue North at 9pm Friday and entered to find Mr Stempinski dead in a hall and his wife's body in her home office.

Hardy Bryan III, a friend of the couple, told the Tampa Bay Times that he had called officers after their daughter Roseann, who lives in San Francisco, told him she hadn't been able to reach her parents on the phone.

He became concerned when the only response to his knocks on their door was a bark from their dog, Popper.

Hardy told the Times that Mr Stempinski, who had been in the police force for 25 years before becoming a successful financial adviser, had been depressed since to an accident in his gym that forced him to walk with a cane.

'Gary was always the picture of health,' Bryan said. 'He once told me, "If you don't have health, then you don't have anything." He basically went from someone who was very healthy to almost an old man overnight.'

His wife, a business consultant and frequent contributor to the Tampa Bay Times, had also recently suffered an accident.

Doctors said she would be dependent on a walker or wheelchair for the rest of her life.

Hardy, who went to lunch with the couple every Thursday, said that he had noticed his friend was depressed, but didn't think it was serious.

'I planned to talk to him today to recommend he get help,' Bryan told the Times on Saturday. 'Marie also recognized he was down in the dumps.'

Both Mr Stempinski and his wife had long and successful careers and continued to work up until their deaths.

Marie Stempinski had been he first woman to work as a reporter for Orlando television station WFTV, according to her LinkedIn profile, before starting her own public relations firm.

She had also taught TV and radio production at a local college and worked as the marketing director of an addiction treatment company.

And Gerard Stempinski followed up his quarter-century in the police force by becoming a financial adviser, first with A.G. Edwards & Sons and later at Raymond James & Associates, where he was associate vice president for investments when he died.

He had been planning to retire in six or seven years, but feared that he might have to do so sooner due to ill health.

His colleagues at Raymond James had become worried Friday when he didn't turn up for work - something that never happened.

Both had also contributed to community groups, as former St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster attested Saturday.
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I read these stories and wonder what the future holds for me. I'm very active and work out in various ways, but I do know aging throws some curves into the mix and hope they don't get so bad that I end up being unable to take care of myself.

If so, that'll be my last day on the planet.
 
@rod2pop I walk out of patients rooms every day and say they are thanking me- writing letters to the hospital about the quality of care and skilled nursing- and I am thinking that's no quality of life- I would rather be dead ♡
 
I can definitely empathize with this dudes position. I wonder if this was a mutual thing between the two.

I'm very active and work out in various ways, but I do know aging throws some curves into the mix and hope they don't get so bad that I end up being unable to take care of myself.

There's absolutely nothing you can do to prevent your body from failing you. Anything can and will happen at some point.
 
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