A Long Island dad torched his home and fled with his toddler son — sparking a nationwide manhunt that ended when they were found dead Wednesday in Virginia in an apparent murder-suicide, authorities said.
The bodies of John Ligurgo III and his 2-year-old son, Jovani, were discovered inside the man’s Jeep Grand Cherokee in rural Rockbridge County, Virginia around 8:45 a.m., cops said.
Officials didn’t immediately indicate the causes of their deaths, though Ligurgo, 43, was believed to have been armed with a hunting rifle when he fled.
The disturbing sequence of events came amid a bitter custody battle between Ligurgo and the boy’s mother, Maria Busone, according to Jovani’s adult brother, Anthony Busone.
“Don’t [worry] Jovani, it will all be over soon,” Ligurgo cryptically said about a week ago when turning over the tot for a visit with his mom, according to Anthony Busone.
“This is not what I thought he meant by that,” Busone, 26, told The Post. “I initially thought it was an empty threat.”
The last time Jovani’s mom saw the boy alive was when she dropped him off with Ligurgo around 7 a.m. Tuesday, Anthony Busone said.
At about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, firefighters responding to a blaze at Ligurgo’s Coram apartment traced the origin of the fire to two beds.
Arson detectives quickly determined the beds were torched intentionally, officials said.
Ligurgo and Jovani were nowhere in sight.
Around the same time the fire was set, Ligurgo was supposed to deliver Jovani to Maria Busone. When the father and son did not show, Busone called police.
While waiting for them to respond, Busone heard about the fire and raced to the Coram apartment, where cops realized they had a missing persons case on their hands.
Suffolk County cops blasted out an alert with a description of Ligurgo’s Jeep to Nassau County and the NYPD. They also warned that Ligurgo was carrying a hunting rifle.
The NYPD got a hit when a toll booth camera captured a shot of Ligurgo’s vehicle heading over the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey around 7:30 p.m., officials said.
At that point, the alert was passed along to cops in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and a National Crime Information Center bulletin was issued.
But that trip over the bridge would be the last confirmed sighting of the Jeep until Wednesday’s grim discovery.
Asked why an Amber Alert was never issued, Suffolk County Chief of Detectives Gerard Gigante deferred to the New York State Police, who make the determination on issuing the alerts.
State Police didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
