A Pennsylvania man called his parents and confessed that he had murdered his high school sweetheart wife before retreating to the woods and shooting himself in a tragic murder-suicide, police revealed.
Ryan Hosso, 26, shot Madeline Spatafore, a 25-year-old physician assistant, multiple times inside their home in Butler County, Pennsylvania, less than two years after the couple tied the knot.
Sometime after he shot his wife, Hosso phoned his parents and told them that he had killed his wife, according to Pennsylvania State Police. They reported the chilling phone call to police around 1:15 a.m. Tuesday.
When police arrived at the home on Graywyck Drive in Seven Fields, investigators discovered Madeline Spatafore dead from multiple gunshot wounds and Hosso nowhere to be found.
Police frantically began searching for Hosso, using thermal drones to eventually locate his body in the woods in neighboring Cranberry Township, the Cranberry Eagle reported.
Hosso was found dead from a single gunshot wound, police said.
“For a short time, the suspect was at large, but we quickly located him in a wooded area behind the house,” said Northern Regional Police Department Chief Bryan DeWick, according to CBS News.
Dewick said the incident appears to be a “domestic situation” and said there was no further threat to the public.
Hosso and Spatafore were married in Ohio in September 2024, according to their wedding registry.
The pair graduated from Seneca Valley High School in Harmony, Pennsylvania — just 10 miles outside their home in Seven Fields. Photos posted to social media showed the couple at the prom together.
After graduating high school in 2019, Spatafore attended Duquesne University in Pittsburgh where she graduated summa cum laude with a degree in health services in 2023.
She was working as a critical care physician assistant at UPMC Presbyterian at the time of her death, according to her LinkedIn.
“Maddie lit up a room,” Philip Clarke, the former director of student services at Duquesne, told CBS News. “Maddie was the type of person who was always happy, in a good mood.”
Hosso studied at Akron University in Ohio and was most recently employed as an applications engineer at riveting machine maker BalTec, the Daily Mail reported.
Police have not released a motive on the murder-suicide and said the investigation is ongoing.
The crime-scene spanned two jurisdictions, so state police troopers from the Butler barracks were called in to take over the investigation.
“We’re going to be here as long as it takes to process the scene,” State Trooper Bertha Cazy told CBS. “That does take an extended amount of time, just with the different organizations that we have here.”
The Post has reached out to state police for additional information.