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Anthony Paruolo is sentenced on Thursday in Nassau County Court...

Anthony Paruolo is sentenced on Thursday in Nassau County Court in Mineola in the fatal stabbing his wife in 2022. Credit: Newsday/Howard Schnapp

A 10-year-old boy told a tear-filled courtroom on Thursday of the horror and confusion he felt after his father came into his North Bellmore bedroom on Oct. 6, 2022, and told him that he had killed his mother.

The boy stood beside the court podium because he was not tall enough to see over it as he spoke to his father, Anthony Paruolo, 39, who was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for killing his mother, Danielle Paruolo, 42, stabbing her repeatedly in the body and neck as she called police for help.

"Anthony came to my room and turned on the lights and said, ‘Your mother is dead,' " the boy told the court.

His father turned to look at his son, expressionless, as he spoke.

"At the time I thought it was a joke or a test," he said. "I thought that for a few hours or minutes until I realized she was really dead. All the police officers came barging in through the front door. Before the police officers came in I was just sitting there and eating Crunch bars because I was so stressed because I didn't know what to do. It was terrible being in the house with a dead body, especially when that body was my mom's."

Paruolo pleaded guilty last month to second-degree murder under a plea deal.

Danielle Paruolo, a social worker who counseled families going through drug, alcohol and domestic violence issues, had told her husband she wanted a divorce. She told him, "I’m taking back my power as a person and as a woman," according to her family.

The couple had attended counseling that day, but shortly before midnight, Paruolo stabbed his wife in the head and torso with a 13-inch chef’s knife, which he left in her neck when he fled, according to police.

Her sister, Maria Eletto, who is raising the boy, said blood covered the walls, a Bible and the boy's toys that had been left in the room.

Maria Eletto, sister of the victim Danielle Paruolo, reads a...

Maria Eletto, sister of the victim Danielle Paruolo, reads a victim impact statement as Anthony Paruolo is sentenced on Thursday. Credit: Newsday/Howard Schnapp

Anthony Paruolo, a former West Hempstead sanitation worker, told the boy what he had done and then fled to the Suffolk County home of a relative, where he was arrested, police said.

"What Anthony thought was the right thing to do in the moment is never the right thing to do in any circumstance," the boy told his father in the courtroom. "While I don't think 20 years to life is a lot, it's definitely better than nothing. I think if Anthony hadn't killed my mom it would be way better, I'd see both of them, I wouldn't have lost almost everything, and I still would have my mom."

Eletto said her sister had kept problems in her relationship from her family.

"We didn’t know she was in a domestic situation," the sister said outside the courthouse after the sentencing. "She kept it a secret. We didn’t know anything until it all came out."

Eletto said her nephew struggles with the trauma of his ordeal, waking up at night for "fear that the monster would come get him."

Supreme Court Justice Robert Schwartz commended the boy for his bravery in addressing the packed court and his father, and admonished Paruolo.

"It doesn’t surprise me that he doesn’t refer to you as his father or Dad," the judge said. "You are just Anthony — a selfish man who killed his mother."

Schwartz acknowledged Paruolo spared the family the pain of a trial and that he had suffered abuse as a child, but he said that was no excuse for what he had done.

The judge referred to him as a "controlling, abusive and unfaithful husband who turned violent when [Danielle] decided to leave you."

Aside from his lengthy sentence, the judge forbade Paruolo from contacting his son in any way for the next 28 years and then only if a family court judge reviews his case and allows it.

"No contact with your son," he said. "No letters, emails, phone calls."

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