As police continued to investigate the triple shooting and suicide in Cambridge that took the lives of four family members on Friday, a relative has identified the victims.
The bodies of Patrick Pizzuto, 63, his 62-year-old brother, Robert, and their 91-year-old mother, Mary, were found inside the Grove Street home, said Josephine Pizzuto, Patrick’s wife, in a phone interview yesterday.
She declined to elaborate on the cause of the disagreement that authorities said led to the shootings.
“This is another horrific example of domestic violence, a familial incident leading to three dead persons in that house,’’ Middlesex District Attorney Gerald T. Leone Jr. said at a press conference after the killings.
“A family’s grieving here,’’ an unidentified man told a reporter at the home, where police were called at 6:40 p.m. Friday after the shootings.
According to Cambridge property records, John P. Brosnahan Jr., 67, is listed as the owner of the house. Brosnahan was quickly named a suspect in the deaths, and for a few hours after the bodies were discovered, police searched for the former Bedford police officer.
A few hours later, his body was found near the Charles River off Soldiers Field Road in Brighton, dead of what police described as a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His late-model Toyota was parked nearby at a Northeastern University boathouse.
Although most relatives contacted yesterday declined to comment on the deaths, the investigation, or what may have led to the family confrontation, a former brother-in-law said Brosnahan was respected and well liked.
“He reminded me of Ward Cleaver, from ‘Leave It To Beaver,’ ’’ said Paul Chaffee, 49, of Naples, Fla. “I admired that family so much that I wanted to be a part of it.’’
Chaffee said he was once married to Brosnahan’s sister, Cheryl, and said the large family’s mixed heritage was a source of occasional friction, he said.
“It was Italian-Irish; they never really got along,’’ he said. “But it was a tight family.’’
Chaffee said he was married to Cheryl Brosnahan until 2000, and that his former wife was a competitive target shooter in her youth. Chaffee said that during his four-year relationship with her, he got to know “Jack,’’ as her brother preferred to be called.
“I got great memories of our large party nights out,’’ he said. “He knew everybody.’’
Chaffee also described how Brosnahan’s nearly 28-year career as a Bedford patrolman brought a strict attitude to the family, and that in addition to Brosnahan, other family members owned firearms.
“It was a bit of a militant household,’’ Chaffee said. “I stayed there; I was a little uncomfortable.’’
During one visit to the Grove Street home, Chaffee was shown a collection of shooting trophies his wife had won, which remained untouched in her childhood bedroom in the house.
“It was like a shrine,’’ he said.
At the time of his death, Brosnahan had a license to carry a gun, which he had recently renewed through the Cambridge Police Department, said department spokesman Dan Riviello.
According to Josephine Pizzuto, no one on her side of the family owned weapons.
“The only members of that family who own firearms are the Brosnahan families,’’ she said.
Chaffee said he always liked Brosnahan, and that after spending a few holidays with him the two became better acquainted, with Brosnahan recounting stories from his time on the police force and his endeavors as a private investigator after he retired from Bedford.
“I looked up to Jack,’’ Chaffee said.
Matt Byrne can be reached at mbyrne.globe@gmail.com.