John Capparelli: Ex-priest accused of child sex abuse shot dead in Nevada home

Police cite 'suspicious circumstances' surrounding death of 70-year-old who allegedly raped and groped teenage boys

Former priest John Capparelli, 70, was found shot dead in his home in Henderson, Nevada (Google)

A former priest and schoolteacher who had been accused of sexually abusing children was found shot to death in his home, police said.

John Capparelli, 70, died of a single gunshot to the neck, a spokeswoman from the Clark County Coroner's Office in Nevada said.

His body was found on Saturday morning in the kitchen of his two bedroom home in Henderson, Nevada, during a welfare check by police.

State authorities have said that Mr Capparelli’s death is being investigated as a homicide.

In a statement, the Henderson Police Department said that investigators have not identified a suspect but were “following up on developed leads” and cited “suspicious circumstances” surrounding his death.

Mr Capparelli was among nearly 200 other priests and deacons who have been credibly accused of the sexual abuse of a minor in a list compiled by the Catholic dioceses in New Jersey.

The disclosures joined a flood of lists released in recent months by Catholic dioceses and religious orders across the country in response to the sex abuse scandal that has engulfed the Church.

The Newark archdiocese said that Mr Capparelli, who was ordained in 1980, served in several parishes and schools before he was removed from ministry and later defrocked.

In a statement on Tuesday, the archdiocese said that it had “no information concerning Mr Capparelli’s death or any investigation related to his death”.

The reported allegations against Mr Capparelli took place while he was still in the priesthood, but they continued to emerge in the years after he left the ministry in 1992.

The Star-Ledger, the newspaper in Newark, covered him extensively, reporting in 2011 that he had been hired as a maths teacher at a public high school in Newark.

He later quit teaching and moved to Nevada. For several years, Mr Capparelli operated a porn website featuring young men wrestling, the Star-Ledger reported.

Mr Capparelli had been accused in lawsuits of groping teenage boys, asking them to wrestle and photographing them in compromising positions while wearing swimsuits.

He had never faced criminal charges related to the allegations, nor had he ever publicly acknowledged any wrongdoing.

One of his accusers, Rich Fitter, said he had been raped by Mr Capparelli as a teenager after meeting him through a Catholic after-school program in Union County, where the priest ran a wrestling club.

Mr Fitter said Mr Capparelli recruited young men “with a certain look” – clean cut and athletic – for the club, befriending them and taking them to the movies or out for pizza.

He made the boys wrestle in Speedo swimsuits, saying that they risked getting caught on loose fabric and injuring themselves, Mr Fitter said.

“He’d be hovering over you, snapping all these pictures,” Mr Fitter, now 52, said.

“And then he’d say ‘Let me help you with some of the moves’, and then he would actually get out on the mat with you.”

Over time, Mr Fitter said, the priest “got more possessive and things got weirder.”

He started to pull away from Mr Capparelli, and that is when the priest raped him, Mr Fitter said.

“The world is a better place and a safer place now,” Mr Fitter said.

He added: “Part of me is angry that I am never going to get an apology or an admission from him, that what he did was wrong.

“But nobody else is going to be hurt by him and that is a good thing.”

New York Times