Cooper Hospital CEO’s Murder-Suicide Questioned, Sons Deny John Sheridan Stabbed Wife, Set Fire To The House

Reports of a hospital CEO’s murder-suicide are being questioned by the children of John Sheridan after police officially announced the Cooper University Health System CEO stabbed and killed his wife, Joyce Sheridan, only to set fire to the house. Their four grown sons claim the findings released by Somerset County Prosecutor Geoffrey Soriano amount to “guesswork” and point out the murder weapon was not found on the scene even after six months has passed.

In a related report by the Inquisitr, a Florida woman stabbed three children before turning the knife on herself. Another boy shot his brother in a murder-suicide a day after the mother pleaded for help.

According to investigators, the hospital CEO’s murder-suicide started with John Sheridan stabbing his wife multiple times in the face and the chest. One of the cuts penetrated her aorta, which was determined as the cause of death. It’s claimed Sheridan then doused the bedroom with gasoline and lit the house on fire only to turn the knife on himself. His body was found crushed under a heavy wooden armoire which fell on him during the house fire, breaking five of his ribs. No sign of forced entry was found in the household.

Initial reports claimed Joyce Sheridan was found alive by responding firefighters, but the report now says she was dead before the house was set ablaze. Witnesses who called 911 say someone attempted to escape the burning room.

“Somebody’s tapping on the window,” said a neighbor in the 911 call according to NBC. “Somebody’s trying to get out.”

Joyce and John Sheridan had been married for 47 years before the hospital CEO’s murder-suicide allegedly took place. Although colleagues of Sheridan claim he was “withdrawn” and “out of character” before the alleged murder-suicide took place, his four sons claim that prosecutors really have “no idea what happened in that room.”

“From the outset we have said that no one wants answers about our parents’ deaths more than we do. The conclusion announced today fails to provide those answers,” they said in a statement, according to NBC. “This conclusion seeks to convict our father based on little more than rank speculation. We will be filing a lawsuit challenging the conclusion announced by investigators. We will not allow our father to be convicted based on guesswork resulting from an inadequate and incomplete investigation simply because he is not here to defend himself.”

The sons question multiple aspects of the hospital CEO’s murder-suicide report, calling it an “embarrassing bungling” of a murder investigation. They do not believe their father had a motive, and they fail to see how a man who had stabbed himself could find himself trapped under heavy furniture. Two knives were found, including a large carving knife covered in Joyce’s blood and a serrated bread knife, but the knife that John allegedly used to stab himself five times was never found.

“If this is a murder-suicide, where is that knife and why was it not recovered at the scene after multiple searches?” the sons asked in their statement, according to CBS.

Investigators did find a melted piece of metal on the bedroom, but prosecutors are uncertain whether it was the knife melted by fire. Somerset county prosecutor Geoffrey Soriano also defended the ruling on the hospital CEO’s murder-suicide, saying it was “completed in a very methodical and comprehensive fashion.”