Rain of Bullets · The True Story of Ernest Ingenito's Bloody Family Massacre

The triple-deck page 1 headline in the Woodbury Times, "Five Killed, Four Wounded When Vet Stages Maniacal Shooting Spree Against Family of Wife," capsulized a Nov. 17, 1950 murder rampage that history still records as one of the worst in Gloucester County history.

Sixty years later, veteran crime writer Patricia A. Martinelli, a life-long Vineland resident, revisits the deadly saga in her new book, Rain of Bullets, due to be released Feb. 1 (Stackpole Books, $24.95).

"One of the main reasons I wanted to write this book is because this type of domestic violence is still so common, not just in South Jersey but throughout the United States," Martinelli says.

Martinelli, who covered the courts and wrote feature stories for the Vineland Times Journal and Bridgeton Evening News before turning to books, is a 1978 graduate of Glassboro State College with a degree in American History.

"Rain of Bullets" is her fifth book since 2004 (Haunted New Jersey, Haunted Delaware, True Crime New Jersey, and True Crime Pennsylvania) with a sixth (True Crime Ohio) in progress.

This book traces the story from the night of the crime to the trials and many appeals that followed in a case that many in South Jersey still vividly recall.

According to police accounts, Ernest Ingenito went to the Franklin Township home of his in-laws the night of Nov. 17 to request a visit with his two young sons who were living with his in-laws, Michael and Pearl Mazzoli, and his estranged wife, Theresa.

Denied visitation, Ingenito reportedly began shooting with two handguns and a rifle he brought with him.

Before the shooting spree ended, five were dead: Both in-laws, plus Theresa's grandmother and her uncle and aunt, Frank and Hilda Mazzoli, who were shot later in Minotola, where they lived. Among the four wounded were Theresa, who was able to call police, and Theresa's 9-year-old cousin. He spared the lives of his children.

After a failed attempt to commit suicide, Ingenito told the judge at his arraignment he didn't want to talk further.

At his trial, which was covered by the national media, Ingenito was given a life sentence, causing a furor among family members who wanted the death sentence, and a retrial that brought him five life sentences.

But New Jersey had no provision for life without the possibility of parole at the time and Ingenito served 23 years before his release. Then he worked odd jobs in the Trenton area.

He was arrested on a charge of sexually assaulting a minor in 1994, at age 70, went back to prison, and died there of heart failure in 1995.

Martinelli, who is related to the Mazzoli family, took a year to write the book and says it has been very thoroughly researched.