Family's plea to dad: spare daughter from having to testify at trial for mom's murder (Burlington, Massachusetts)

Let's see. How to tell if Daddy is a POS. He not only viciously stabs the mother to death, he does it in front of their traumatized 15-year-old daughter. And then, to be a really special POS, Dad doesn't have the guts to plead guilty, but is going to retraumatize the daughter by making her testify at trial.

Dad is identified as CHRSTOPHER PIANTEDOSI.

http://bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?&articleid=1061130042&format=&page=1&listingType=col#articleFull

Family’s plea: Save daughter from more trauma, admit guilt

By Jessica Heslam

Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - Updated 6 hours ago

The Burlington teen who witnessed her mother’s ruthless slaying “desperately” misses her mom, and her loved ones hope the accused killer — her own father — will cop to the crime so she never has to testify.

“I hope he pleads guilty because I would hate to see (her daughter) have to end up on the witness stand. That would be horrible,” family relative Lovell Pulisciano told the Herald yesterday. “That would be more traumatic for her. She’s going through enough. She doesn’t need that, too.”

Grieving friends and family are grappling with the heartless murder of Kristen Pulisciano, 38 — an administrative assistant and devoted mother stabbed, authorities say, nearly three dozen times Thursday by her estranged longtime beau, Christopher Piantedosi.

Their 15 year-old daughter was home at the time and called police while the friend she had been video chatting with on her iPad saw the harrowing murder unfold, authorities said yesterday.

“We’re all just so traumatized by this,” said Lovell, who was married to Kristen’s late father and has two daughters with him. “To do that to the mother of his daughter — and especially his daughter saw everything — what an awful thing for a child to see. Your father killing your mother — I mean, that’s outrageous. We’re just very upset.”

“Her daughter’s very, very strong,” Lovell added. “Of course she misses her mother desperately but she seems to be holding her own.”

Lovell, 68, divorced Kristen’s father before she was born, but she loved her dearly and fondly recalled how she used to hold Kristen when she was little. Her two daughters are Kristen’s half-sisters.

“She was a beautiful sister,” said Amanda Pulisciano.

Kristen relished being a mother. She also leaves a 20-year-old son.

Kristen’s longtime friends from North Reading sent a moving letter to the Herald, saying she was a remarkable woman and dedicated mother who was kind, good-hearted and made friends with everyone.

“Kristen had such drive to make herself and her children’s lives better,” her friends wrote. “Our lives are all better for having Kristen in them.”

Kristen and her daughter used to go shopping together and to the beach and movies.

“She had a job and she was very happy with the way things were going,” said Lovell, who kept in touch with Kristen over the phone and on Facebook.

“She was getting a new car. Things were going great.”

Lovell said Kristen had gone to school to become a medical assistant.

“We were all so proud of her,” Lovell said. “With her gone, there’s a big hole in everybody’s life.”

Since September, Kristen had been working as an administrative assistant at Monument Mortgage in Lexington. “She was well-liked by the whole office,” said a co-worker. “We’re all very, very saddened by this.”

Yesterday, Lovell’s voice broke as she said that Kristen is now with God. “This is going to hurt for a long, long time,” she said. “She was the type of person you loved.”