Mario Casanova-Lanzo
This apartment building in the 200 block of N. 3rd St. in Columbia was the scene of a homicide Wednesday night.
This apartment building in the 200 block of N. 3rd St. in Columbia was the scene of a homicide Wednesday night.
The estranged husband of a Columbia woman broke into her home Wednesday night and fatally shot the man she was with in her bedroom, according to police.
Mario Casanova-Lanzo, 36, is charged with homicide and burglary in Wednesday night's killing of Parrish Thaxton.
Casanova-Lanzo broke a rear kitchen window to get into Holly Casanova's home in the 200 block of North 3rd Street, walked up the stairs to a second-floor bedroom and shot and killed Thaxton, according to a criminal complaint. Thaxton was shot shortly before 10:20 p.m.
Casanova-Lanzo fled but turned himself in to Lancaster city police Thursday morning.
Columbia police Chief Jack R. Brommer Jr. said Casanova-Lanzo and Holly Casanova had been living at the 3rd Street home for a number of years, but that Casanova-Lanzo hadn't been staying there for at least a couple months.
"I don't have a comment on motive, but what I can say is, Holly and the victim were involved in a relationship for a number of months, and that wasn't news to Mario," Brommer said.
In Lancaster County Court documents regarding a temporary protection from abuse order filed in October, Casanova described her estranged husband as a paranoid schizophrenic who also is bipolar. She said that he had stopped taking his medication.
When she told him on Oct. 20 that she wanted a divorce, Casanova said he told her "he would kill me if I ever left him and that he would stab me in the neck and he would go to jail forever; because i (sic) am his 'til death. He says I'm stuck with him forever," she wrote in the court documents.
She called police two days later and said she feared for her life because he told her, "You think I'm playing, I will cut your head off," according to the documents
He ran his finger across his throat, she wrote.
She also wrote that while Casanova-Lanzo was no longer physically abusing her, in the past he had regularly punched her in the face, choked her, held a gun to her, hit her with a machete and used a dresser to block a door and keep her in a bedroom to keep her from getting medical attention after one beating.
And, according to the document, Casanova-Lanzo had twice broken into her house. Once he hid in her closet and then put a knife to her throat. The next night, she called police and he was arrested.
The PFA expired in December when Casanova did not attend a hearing, according to court documents.
Thaxton, 36, was shot in the head and chest, according to Lancaster County Coroner Dr. Stephen Diamantoni, who performed an autopsy Thursday morning.
Authorities said Thaxton had addresses in both Lancaster and Bronx, N.Y.
Newspaper records indicate Casanova-Lanzo and Casanova applied for a marriage license in 2007 and had a son in January 2008.
On a Facebook page in her name, Casanova indicates she has six children; three are with Casanova-Lanzo, according to documents seeking the restraining order.
Brommer declined to say if any children were home at the time of the shooting.
A Facebook message sent to Casanova was not returned.
Casanova-Lanzo was arraigned by Columbia-area District Judge Robert Herman Jr. on Thursday. He is being held without bail at Lancaster County Prison.
dnephin@lnpnews.com
