BRIDGEPORT, Conn. – For better or worse, an 87-year-old woman has married a 49-year-old man who police say bludgeoned his grandmother and great aunt to death 30 years ago and buried them in their beloved rose garden.
Frank Czumalowski was married Tuesday in Bridgeport to Radmila Dobrijevickan of Easton.
Their honeymoon will have to wait. After the wedding, they went to court, where Superior Court Judge Richard Comerford sentenced Czumalowski to 2 1/2 years in prison for violating his probation over a conviction for sexually assaulting his 12-year-old stepdaughter from another marriage.
As he was taken away in handcuffs, Czumalowski's new bride pledged she would wait for him.
"Who are we to judge?" said Czumalowski's lawyer, Rob Serafinowicz. "Throughout history there have been odd couples and things worked out well. In this case, all we can do is wish them the best and hopefully, with good behavior, Frank will be out in a year."
In a rambling diatribe that lasted nearly an hour, the new Mrs. Czumalowski defended her husband to the judge.
"He didn't want to kill a bug on the porch, I had to use my velvet slipper to kill the bug," she said. "He is a very unlucky person, I hope I will have a good life with him."
In 1977, Czumalowski, then 19, was found not guilty by reason of insanity of the murders of his grandmother and great-aunt.
According to police, Czumalowski's 82-year-old grandmother, Louise Tomassetti, and 60-year-old aunt, Elvira Barbieri, were huddled over the stove in their Milford home, preparing an Easter dinner, when he beat his grandmother to death and stabbed and beat his aunt to death. He buried them beside their rose bushes, police said.
Czumalowski was released from a state psychiatric hospital after about six years.
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