This archive report was first published on 22 May 2020.
On Thursday, May 21, 2020, a shocking incident occurred in Amityville, New York, where a 32-year-old man was arrested and charged with murder after fatally stabbing his father during a Zoom video call with about 20 people.
The victim, Dwight Powers, 72, was participating in the Zoom call at his home on Dixon Avenue in Amityville, N.Y., just after noon when he was attacked by his son Thomas Scully-Powers, according to the Suffolk County Police Department.
People on the call reported seeing Mr. Powers and then suddenly realizing that he was no longer onscreen, with some participants witnessing part of the attack, a spokesman for the Suffolk County police said.
"They just noticed him fall off the screen and then they heard heavy breathing," Detective Lt. Kevin Beyrer of the Suffolk County police homicide squad told Newsday. "It was horrible that they had to witness this."
Several participants in the Zoom video conference called 911, and the police found and arrested Mr. Scully-Powers in less than an hour, the authorities said.
Mr. Scully-Powers was injured when he jumped out a second-story window of the home where he and his father both lived and was transported to a hospital to recover, the police said.
The police said Mr. Scully-Powers had been charged with second-degree murder and would be arraigned after being discharged from the hospital.
