A South Carolina mother who demanded “answers” from police investigating her family's 2015 murder has now been charged with her murders.
Amy Vilardi cried in television interviews and asked how the killer could “live with himself” after her mother, stepfather and two grandmothers were found shot and stabbed to death in their home outside Pendleton.
Now she has been charged with the murders along with her husband, whom she had married eight weeks earlier.
“I think we knew this day was coming,” Anderson County Sheriff Chad McBride said.
“I think we knew in the back of our minds that it was just a matter of putting a lot of pieces together and just putting in a lot of hard work and effort.”
Vilardi's grandmother Barbara Scott, 80, (left) was slaughtered along with Violet Taylor, 82, (right), her stepfather's mother
Amy Vilardi's mother Cathy Scott was killed seconds after her husband Mike. Friends had described them as a devoted couple and former childhood sweethearts
Amy and Rosmore Vilardi were arrested at 4 p.m. Friday and charged with four counts of murder. They were denied bail when they appeared in court on Saturday
Mike Scott, 58, and his wife Cathy, 60, were slaughtered in November 2015 along with his mother Barbara Scott, 80, and her mother Violet Taylor, 82.
Police found no signs of burglary or theft and a coroner concluded all four “had no time to defend themselves.”
Amy called 911 after claiming to have discovered the bodies as she returned with her husband from a trip to visit his family in Columbia, a 90-minute drive away.
“I don't understand why any of this happened and I just keep thinking it's a dream that I'm going to wake up from,” Vilardi said alongside her husband in a series of interviews with WSPA-7.
“It’s not supposed to be real life.”
“Whoever did this, I don’t understand how you can live with yourself.”
And she wanted to know why the police weren't making any further progress in their investigation.
“I understand they have a job to do, but sometimes we as family members want answers,” she complained.
Six months later, they sued the police to recover property seized during the investigation, including two cars, 18 firearms and $60,000 in cash.
Vilardi lived with husband Rosmore Vilardi and their two young children in a mobile home outside the three-bedroom bungalow from which she ran a mobile pet grooming business called Styles For Miles.
“I don’t understand why any of this happened and I always think it’s a dream that I’m going to wake up from,” Vilardi told interviewers
The three-bedroom house outside Pendleton where all four family members were slaughtered
Amy Vilardi, who married Rosmore eight weeks before the murders, lived in a mobile home next to the family home
Vilardi had asked why the police were not making any further progress in the investigation
She described watching the television in the house and knocking on the door. When she received no response, she went inside and turned on the lights to reveal the gruesome scene
revealed at the time that Vilardi had argued with her mother and had not allowed her to see her four- and six-year-old grandchildren between early July and late October.
But Vilardi told investigators that the disagreements that occurred were not serious and were similar to those of other families.
She had worn a purple dress when she married Rosmore weeks earlier, and the day before the murders she posted a Facebook message indicating that the family feud was over.
“Everything is looking better.” “Prayers have been answered,” she wrote.
And her husband had posted a glowing tribute to his mother-in-law a day earlier.
“I love you Cathy…my wife is one of God's greatest blessings,” he wrote.
“Your love is a gift that I am grateful for every day.”
Matt worked for the South Carolina Department of Transportation and shortly before his execution he had sent his boss a text message telling him he would be back at work that morning.
A relative said Cathy and Mike originally dated in high school.
“But they went their separate ways and met again after Cathy's husband died of cancer,” they added.
Anderson County Detective Scotty Hill
“They got married nine years ago and their anniversary would have been this week.” They were devoted to each other.
“Mike was the kind of guy who would rip your shirt off your back.” He was so kind and it's an example of that when you see that he took in his own mother and also Cathy's mother to live with them.
“He said his mother could no longer take care of herself as she was getting older, and he felt the same about his mother-in-law.
“This is such a tragic end for Cathy and Mike.”
The two older women were shot as they left their bedrooms after Scott took a bullet in the head in the living room.
His wife managed to escape to the master bedroom, where the killer followed her to complete the massacre by shooting her twice in the head.
Beside her by the bed were two weapons, a pellet gun and a shotgun, which belonged to her husband but were not used.
“Mike, Barbara and Violet were all killed by having their throats slit, and Cathy was killed by a stab wound to the chest,” Anderson County Sheriff's Office Detective Scotty Hill told the Unsolved Mysteries podcast earlier this year “.
“Mike, Barbara and Violet were all shot postmortem.” Cathy was shot while she was still alive, but that wasn't the reason she was killed. It was the knife wound in the chest that killed her.
“When we found out the extent of their injuries and the fact that their throats were cut and then they were shot postmortem, it came across as very, very aggressive and personal and someone full of anger and hatred.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this before or since.”
Vilardi told interviewers how she allegedly found the bodies after returning with her husband shortly before 12:30 p.m.
She described hearing the televisions in the house and knocking on the door. When she received no response, she went inside and turned on the lights to reveal the gruesome scene.
“When I went to knock on the back door, the door just opened, so I went in, it was dark and I just turned on the light and there they were,” she explained.
“They were just there.”
The couple moved after the murders and moved into the murdered family's home. They were named “persons of interest” as part of the investigation in March this year.
Police said the unsolved murders outside Pendleton had “shocked the community to its core.”
The trailer Amy Vilardi used for her mobile pet grooming business
“I think we knew this day was coming,” Anderson County Sheriff Chad McBride said
They were arrested at 4 p.m. on Friday and charged with four counts of murder. They were denied bail when they appeared in court on Saturday.
They were booked into the Anderson County Detention Center ahead of their next court date on Feb. 20.
Police have not revealed why they believe they have made a breakthrough after so long in a case that “shocked the community to its core.”
“We are grateful to share new developments that may lead to a long-awaited path to justice,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.