A former Tenafly, N.J. police officer has been found guilty in the death of his husband, a retired NYPD cop, whom he fatally shot while drunkenly trying to demonstrate how to kill a snake.
Joseph Grieco, 38, has long claimed the death of 44-year-old John Kelly, his partner of 14 years, was a “freak accident” and not an intentional act.
The couple had only just purchased a plot of land in Vernon Township, and were staying in an apartment nearby as they built their new home, when the incident occurred in the summer of 2023.
In the early hours of July 26, authorities were called to the apartment on the 300 block of Route 94 to investigate reports of a “discharge of a weapon with injuries,” the Sussex County Prosecutor’s Office said at the time.
When they arrived on the scene around 1:20 a.m., they found Kelly suffering from a gunshot wound to the chest. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died a short time later.
According to an affidavit of probable cause, Greico appeared intoxicated and told officers he and Kelly had been drinking in the hours leading up to the gunfire. He said he was trying to teach his husband how to shoot a snake when he mistakenly fired his weapon, fatally striking Kelly.
Following a trial that began last week, Greico was found guilty on Thursday of first-degree aggravated manslaughter with extreme indifference to human life, NJ.com reported Friday. No information was given on when sentencing will occur. In New Jersey, first-degree aggravated manslaughter is punishable by 10 to 30 years in prison.
Greico, the Tenafly Police Department’s first openly gay officer, retired on disability from in 2022 following an extended medical leave. He’d been suffering from what he said were cardiac, neurological and mental issues caused by long COVID. State records also showed he suffered a “traumatic” work-related accident two years earlier.
Born in Yonkers in 1978, Kelly kicked of his career in law enforcement as a police officer in Winchester County before joining the NYPD, according to an online obituary. He later retired and went on to earn a master’s degree in corporate communications from New York University to work in the private sector.
In a since-deleted Facebook tribute in the wake of the shooting, Grieco wrote on the man he described as “always the better half” in their relationship.
“You brought happiness and smiles to so many people and you never even knew it, or rarely noticed it, because it was so common any time you walked into a space,” Grieco said of his husband. “I wish that freak accident never happened, but unfortunately freak accidents are always a game of what-ifs… constant moments of steps that lead to a single moment, followed by horrific grief.”