Man Held in Slayings Says He’s Innocent

Emory M. Futo Jr., a Riverside man arrested after his parents and two brothers were found murdered in Missouri, told a neighbor Sunday that he was innocent.

Rob Bobkiewicz said he had spoken to Futo by phone Sunday after stopping at the Futo home while the suspect was calling his wife from jail.

“He asked to talk to me, and asked me if I’d help look after his family until he got out,” said Bobkiewicz, a Covina police officer. “He said he didn’t do it.”

Neighbors said they were shocked by news of the murders because Futo, who worked at the Anheuser-Busch plant in Riverside, was generally well liked and got along well with other residents on the quiet cul-de-sac where he lived.

Futo, 26, was arrested late Saturday in the murder of a brother, Nicholas, who had been found shot to death Friday in a dumpster near a St. Louis cemetery.

Emory Futo has not been charged in the deaths of his father, Emory Sr., 53, and mother, Euna 50, or his brother Joseph, 22. The bodies of both parents were found stabbed and possibly shot in their St. Louis home. Joseph Futo was found dead from a gunshot wound in a car nearby, authorities said.

Several neighbors said they had attended a Fourth of July party at the Futo home and said that his parents and brothers were visiting. Futo lived with his wife, Angela, and their young son.

“Everybody seemed to get along real well,” Bobkiewicz said.

Others on the street of newly built stucco homes with red tile roofs, said Futo got along with his neighbors and was well-liked.

However, a former neighbor on a street where Futo previously lived said Futo had once quarreled with a neighbor, whose house shared a common wall. The two quarreled over the paint and wall covering used, Leonard Maslovitz said. He recalled Futo as “a hothead. But not that way,” Maslovitz added, referring to the murders. “It’s so hard for me to believe that.”

Futo became a suspect after Missouri authorities learned he had been expected in St. Louis for a visit around the time of the killings, and a family car believed used as an escape vehicle was found abandoned near the airport.

Neither the St. Louis city nor county police departments, which are investigating the murders, issued public statements Sunday.