A former New Jersey police officer went on trial Wednesday for the shooting death of his husband, a retired New York Police Department cop, nearly two years ago.
Joseph C. Grieco, 38, is accused of shooting John Kelly, 44, in the chest in what he reportedly called “a freak accident” at their home in Sussex County, N.J. in late July 2023.
Authorities say the former Tenafly Police Department officer and EMT shot his husband and partner of 14 years after a night of drinking, according to NJ.com.
Police were called to an apartment in the 300 block of Route 94 in Vernon Township in the early hours of July 26, 2023 for reports of a “discharge of a weapon with injuries,” the Sussex County Prosecutor’s Office said at the time, local media reported.
When first responders arrived, they found Kelly with a gunshot wound to his lower torso.
According to an affidavit of probable cause reviewed by NJ.com, Grieco told police he had shot his husband by accident while trying to demonstrate how to kill a snake. Kelly was taken to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead a short time later, officials said.
Grieco, who retired on disability from the Tenafly Police Department in 2022, was charged with first-degree aggravated manslaughter with extreme indifference to human life.
Opening arguments got underway Wednesday morning, according to a spokesperson for the Sussex County Prosecutor’s Office. The prosecution is expected to rest its case on Thursday, and the defense will begin presenting its case next week.
Kelly was born in Yonkers in 1978 and started his career in law enforcement as a police officer in Westchester County before joining the NYPD, according to an online obituary. He eventually earned a master’s degree in corporation communications from New York University and began working in the private sector.
After meeting Grieco through a mutual friend, their “relationship quickly took shape” and the couple set up a home with their two French bulldogs Olive and Beesley.
Two years before the shooting, the two bought a property bordering New York State where they planned “to build their forever home.”
In a since-deleted Facebook post, Grieco wrote that “didn’t understand the true heaviness” that Kelly’s life had on his until the incident on that fateful night, which he called a “freak accident,” the Daily Voice Highland Lakes-Vernon reported.
Kelly, who had deep ties with the City of Englewood, N.J. was described by Mayor Michael Wildes in an online tribute as a “true gentleman, dear friend, and extraordinary man … who often represented me at functions and was gracious in his handling of delicate policy matters.”