Getting colder: Wancura homicide case still unsolved

The return of the ospreys from their winter quarters. Rehearsals for the school’s musical. St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. The popping sound of balls hitting the pockets of leather gloves. The delight in seeing spring’s signal flares of forsythia. 

All of the above are familiar markers of March on Shelter Island. And now, since 2018, one more: the anniversary of the Island’s second only recorded homicide in its centuries’ old history.

Eight years this month, on March 19, 2018, 87-year-old retired Episcopal minister Rev. Paul Wancura was found barely conscious, wrists bound, alone in his Silver Beach home on Oak Tree Lane.

After being airlifted to Stony Brook University Hospital, he had multiple blood transfusions and endured the amputation of his left hand, before dying of his wounds on April 16, just short of a month after being found. The official cause of death was sepsis, which is a system-wide infection, often caused by injuries.

He was the victim of the most shocking and brutal crime ever committed on Shelter Island, and since that windy, bright March day eight years ago, there have been no arrests, and no suspects identified.

The Shelter Island (SIPD) and Suffolk County Police (SCPD) departments have made no statements on leads. Both departments have designated the crime as a home invasion and burglary — several items of jewelry were stolen — as well as a homicide. Last week, SIPD Chief Jim Read said in a statement: “The investigation into this homicide remains open and active. The Shelter Island Police Department continues to work closely with the Suffolk County Police Department Homicide Bureau, and both agencies remain committed to resolving this case. While there is no new information that we can publicly release at this time, the case continues to be reviewed and investigators remain committed to following up on any information that may assist in moving the investigation forward.”

One change in the case after eight years has been the appointment, two months ago, of Detective Lieutenant Mike Pirone, a 32-year SCPD veteran, as commanding officer of the homicide squad, replacing Det. Lt. Kevin Breyer, who has retired. Another new wrinkle, Det. Lt. Pirone told the Reporter this week, is that in working the case new advancements in DNA technologies are being employed. The Homicde Bureau of detectives is also continuing to team with the department’s Cold Case Unit, which works with the County District Attorney’s office.

Chief Read, within a few days of the reports from Oak Tree Lane, said it was “not a random incident,” and the SCPD has confirmed that, noting there were elements of the crime that led investigators to believe that whoever committed the crime planned it and knew what they were doing going in. “We don’t believe that the person or persons who did this thought they were going into an unoccupied house,” the former chief of the SCPD investigative team said.

Det. Lt. Pirone told the Reporter last week, “We haven’t shifted from that theory.”

One of Rev. Wancura’s friends, who had visited him in the hospital, said that he had told him it was not “persons” who had committed the crime, but one man. When this was mentioned to the former homicide chief, he confirmed that the victim “did speak about one person, but we don’t want to limit ourselves. We want to keep our options open.”

Det. Lt. Pirone agreed with his predecessor’s assessment, noting, “We’re looking for any person who might have been involved. Could there have been other people acting in concert? Sure. We haven’t narrowed it down to one single individual.”

Given that Rev. Wancura was lucid during his time in the hospital, the former lead investigator was asked what descriptions he gave of the person or persons who assaulted him. “We’re not going to comment on our conversations with him,” the officer said. 

Det. Lt Pirone said, “We don’t stop. If a case isn’t solved, we work it until it is solved.” He expressed pride in the Homicide Bureau’s excellent record of bringing criminals to justice; in 2025, officers had a 100% arrest rate for homicides.

About a month after the first reports of the incident surfaced, the police released a description and photograph of one of the items stolen from Rev. Wancura’s residence, a Lucien Piccard Seashark watch. A $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the killer or killers has been posted. Anyone with information is urged to phone 1-800-220-TIPS.

Rumors were part of nearly every Island conversation in the weeks after the homicide, and still circulate today. 

‘SHATTERED INNOCENCE’

After the crime became known, a sense of fear flooded through every Island neighborhood, affecting people of all ages, but especially senior citizens. The Island had been that clichéd place where people didn’t feel the need to lock their doors at night. But that feeling of and uncertainty, especially during the quiet times of winter, still affects many people. The incident on Oak Tree Lane inspired the town supervisor at the time, Gary Gerth, to sum up what was on the minds of many residents: “This has shattered the innocence of Shelter Island.”

The only other homicide case in the Island’s 300-year history occurred in 1998. Kenneth Payne III was arrested for killing his neighbor Curtis Cook, with police reporting that Mr. Payne was angered by threats Mr. Cook made to his girlfriend and daughter, and a belief that Mr. Cook was guilty of child molestation charges that were pending against him.

Mr. Payne was sentenced to 25 years to life in an upstate prison, but released after six years when the State Court of Appeals determined he had been sentenced on a wrong charge.

Reports of the Wancura case — of an elderly minister assaulted, bound, left alone and subsequently dying from the attack, in a small, quiet island town — attracted extraordinary attention. There were stories in media outlets as far afield as Britain. A book is supposedly in the works on the case as well as a documentary.

The crime came to light on a day when the Island was just on the cusp of spring. Father Charles McCarron of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church went to check on his elderly colleague, who had been out of touch for several days. He thought he was prepared for the worst. But what Father McCarron discovered was as horrific as it was heartbreaking.

He had gone to Rev. Wancura’s home in Silver Beach, where the minister lived alone, because he had been absent from Sunday services at a church in West Islip where he had assisted most weekends.

Father McCarron entered the waterfront house on Oak Tree Lane, the one-lane road that leads to Shell Beach, through the garage door, which Rev. Wancura had a habit of leaving open. “Knowing his age, I was prepared to find that he might have fallen, or was ill,” Father McCarron said. “But not what I found.”

The elderly minister was in a bedroom, trapped in a corner in a heap between the bed and a wall, with his wrists so tightly bound the circulation in his hands was almost cut off. It was determined that he had been in that state from three to seven days, Chief Read said, and he would be dead just short of a month after being found.

He was lucid and his own personable self during his time in the ICU, Father McCarron and others said, receiving friends and colleagues at his bedside. At times he rallied, giving hope he’d pull through. But being tied up for days, immobile against a wall, had been too much for the nearly 90-year-old man.

A visitor to the hospital, a veteran of Vietnam, said he had never seen such serious wounds since his service in the war.

LAWSUIT ADDED TO THE MIX

On Aug. 13, 2021, two-and-a-half years after the death of Rev. Wancura, a North Carolina man filed suit in New York State Supreme Court against the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island and two Long Island Episcopal parishes for $20 million, alleging that when he was a boy, he was sexually abused by Rev. Wancura from 1978 to 1985. The legal action is still ongoing.

Rev. Wancura had assisted with services in several Episcopal parishes, including Holy Trinity in Greenport and Caroline in Setauket. It was there that Lew H. Crispin III of Buncombe County, N.C., alleges in the suit that Rev. Wancura abused and sexually assaulted him on a “regular and ongoing basis for a period of approximately seven years, beginning around 1978, when Plaintiff was about eight years old, and ending on or about 1985, when Plaintiff, then about 15 years old, was baptized and confirmed and then immediately ceased attending Caroline Church, never to return.”

The suit claims church officials were aware, or should have been aware, that Rev. Wancura was a sexual predator of children.

Represented by his attorney, Gil Santamarina of Manhattan, Mr. Crispin is seeking the $20 million in damages that the abuse, he claims, “caused and will continue to cause Plaintiff to suffer severe and permanent damages, including but not limited to physical injury and mental and emotional distress.”

Since the original filing, the three suits have been consolidated into one before a State Supreme Court in Manhattan, where the main branch of the Episcopal church oversees the Long Island congregations. The church has filed a motion to dismiss all the charges; it’s been more than four years without any decision from the court.

This week, Denise Fillion, Director of Communication for the Diocese, said “the case continues to proceed slowly. Depositions of all parties were conducted over the past few months.”

Mr. Santamarina didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

WANCURA REMEMBERED

An Episcopal archdeacon of Suffolk County, Rev. Wancura served in many roles throughout the Diocese of Long Island, including, for a decade, serving at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Greenport.

A graduate of Queens College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Business Administration, he held a Master of Divinity from the General Theological Seminary in New York City. He had also served with the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps in Austria and France, before finding his vocation in the Episcopal priesthood.

Rev. Wancura was interred in the cemetery of the Caroline Church of Brookhaven in Setauket on April 23, 2018, where he had served as pastor for close to three decades. He was laid to rest alongside his wife, Helena, who died in 2007.

At a memorial service held at St. Mary’s in April 2018, his friend, Islander Twoey Brayson, remembered Rev. Wancura as a man of “keen intellect,” who was versed in history and theology, who “liked to dance, sing, enjoyed a good cigar and a wee dram of Scotch … He was still a student. He never acted old … He loved Shelter Island for its natural beauty but also for its peacefulness … Paul is truly missed by all who knew him, loved him and were enriched by having him in their lives.”

Michael Russell, a parishioner of the Caroline Church, recalled Rev. Wancura as an energetic and dynamic pastor. “A whole bunch of us became parishioners after meeting him,” Mr. Russell said. “He built our church up.”

Father Peter DeSanctis, pastor of Our Lady of the Isle, remembered him as a man of dedication “to Our Lord, to his wife and to his professional obligations. Paul was always on the alert, not waiting for the phone to ring or the knock on the door, for situations where an intervention would be helpful.”

Asked about the day he found his friend, and the images that accompany his memory, Father McCarron said he’s “talked about it and worked through it” with a person in his diocese who counsels priests on personal issues.

He paused, and added, “Paul is where he always wanted to be. I believe he’s doing pretty good.”