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Jewish Snowbirds Were Smothered To Death in Florida Townhouse

Police Hunt Two or More Suspects — No Known Motive

By Forward Staff

A Toronto Jewish couple found dead in their Florida townhouse in January were asphyxiated and police said they have no motive in what they called a ‘senseless’ crime.

Police Chief Dwayne Flournoy of Hallandale Beach, Fla., told a news conference that there were at least two perpetrators, and police have “no reason to believe the people responsible were known to [the couple].”

The January murders of Toronto snowbirds David “Donny” Pichosky and Rochelle Wise in South Florida were “senseless,” Flournoy added.

Wise’s son issued an emotional plea for leads in the baffling case.

“Today we are putting the pain aside so that we can really appeal to everyone. We’re just looking for any bit of information,” Wise’s son, Jamie Wise, 37, of Toronto, said at a news conference outside the Hallandale Beach Police Department, the Sun-Sentinel reported.

“We’re stunned. It’s heartbreaking. It’s horrible, unimaginable and senseless, all of those things It’s difficult to verbalize.”

Wise, 66, was a retired preschool administrator at Bialik Hebrew Day School in Toronto and a former director of a day camp. Pichosky, her husband of four years, was a retired businessman who volunteered with Jewish seniors. The couple belonged to Toronto’s Shaarei Shomayim Congregation. Their deaths shocked Toronto’s Jewish community.

“As we begin to release details, more and more you will find how senseless this murder is,” Flournoy told the press conference, the Toronto Star reported.