Stars Whose Parents Have Been Murdered
The death of Dylan McDermott's mom has been ruled a homicide.
June 25, 2012 — -- intro: Dylan McDermott may finally have some closure. A reopened police investigation has concluded that the actor's mother, Diane McDermott, was shot and killed in 1967 by her now-dead gangster boyfriend.
Police in Waterbury, Conn., reopened the investigation into Diane McDermott's death in 2011 after Dylan McDermott contacted them with questions, according to the Republican-American newspaper. The actor, who was born in Waterbury, met a local mayor at a fundraiser last year and told him that he wanted to know what really happened to his mom.
"He said, 'in order for me to survive and to get where I am today, I needed to bury that moment in my life deep within myself,''" Gugliotti Mayor Neil M. O'Leary told the Associated Press. "He said, 'it wasn't until recently that I've come to the point in my life where I'm able to begin to process all of this and make it part of his life.'"
While Diane McDermott's death was made to look like an accident, police concluded that she was shot in the back of the head, and the weapon found by her body was not the one that was used to kill her.
The "American Horror Story" star declined to comment, but his sister told the Republican-American, "I'm happy to know my mother wasn't mentally ill or depressed. Somebody took her from us; she didn't leave us."
Click through for five more stars who have dealt with the heartbreak of their parents being murdered.
quicklist: 1title: Jennifer Hudson text: Oscar-winning "Dreamgirls" actress and singer Jennifer Hudson suffered a horrific tragedy when her mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew were murdered by her estranged brother-in-law, William Balfour. Balfour went into a shooting rage at the family's Chicago home, thinking that his wife, Julia Hudson, was dating another man. He was found guilty of first-degree murder in May.
Hudson and her sister put out a statement following the trial, thanking lawyers, law enforcement officials, God and their supporters: "We have felt the love and support from people all over the world and we're very grateful."media: 16644096
quicklist: 2title: Patrick Duffytext: Duffy dealt with the murder of his parents when he was first on "Dallas" in the 1980s. In 1986, Marie and Terence Duffy were killed during an armed robbery at the Montana bar they owned. The killers, Kenneth Miller and Sean Wentz, were teenagers at the time. They were convicted of the murders and sentenced to 75 years in prison. Wentz later admitted that he was the sole gunman, and Miller was released on parole in December 2007.
Duffy's Buddhist beliefs have helped him deal with the loss of his parents in an unconventional way. "Every single unfortunate thing that happens, including, for instance, the murder of my parents, I am responsible for," he told the Guardian in 2006. "I am responsible for being the son of two people who got murdered. I didn't cause their murder. But if I'm suffering because of it, it's my karma that I have manifested in this lifetime in this particular set of circumstances."media: 16644173
quicklist: 3title: Michael Jordan text: James R. Jordan, the father of basketball legend Michael Jordan, was murdered in 1993, when he pulled over to the side of the highway in North Carolina to take a nap. Daniel Green and Larry Martin Demery spotted Jordan's Lexus coupe and shot him dead and stole the car. Jordan's body was found weeks later in a South Carolina swamp.
Green and Demery were caught after making several phone calls from Jordan's cell phone. Both were convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
At his father's North Carolina funeral in August 1993, Michael Jordan tearfully addressed 200 mourners and spoke of the lessons he and others had learned from his father. A church official told a local newspaper, "He said even though his dad was gone, the lessons he had taught Michael and his children and others he met would live on."media: 16644141
quicklist: 4title: Charlize Therontext: This one's a twist: Charlize Theron's mom killed the Oscar-winner's father in self-defense, and the actress was there to witness the horrible episode. In 1991, her dad and his brother came home in a drunken rage and threatened to kill the rest of the family. Theron told ABC News' Diane Sawyer that she remembers her dad, a "big guy" and an alcoholic, banging on her door and saying, "Tonight I'm going to kill you both with the shotgun."
When he fired the gun into Theron's room, her mother grabbed her own handgun and shot her husband and his brother, killing her husband and wounding the brother. Theron said that while she was shocked, she never doubted her mother's intentions. "I know what happened," she said. "And I know that if my daughter was in the same situation, I would do the same thing." Theron's mom never faced prosecution because the attorney general ruled that she had acted in self-defense. media: 16644106
quicklist: 5title: Charice Pempengcotext: "Glee" star Charice Pempengco endured a horrible loss last year when her father was stabbed to death with an ice pick at a grocery store in the Philippines. According to police, he accidentally brushed against a drunken man in the store, who picked a fight and ended up stabbing him.
Pempengco mourned her father on Twitter, saying that they had been close until her parents separated. "We had a really great relationship before all the trouble started," she wrote. "I loved him and I will still love him. He's still my dad, after all."media: 16644083
