FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – June 26, 2013

            The Brevard County Grand Jury issued a first-degree premeditated murder indictment on Tuesday, June 25, against Francis Thomas Riccio, 46, for the March 2013 death of Maureen Riccio, his 71-year-old mother, in Melbourne. Riccio was also charged with abuse of a dead human body and tampering with evidence.

            Riccio’s girlfriend and the mother of their three children, Ilene Renee Lazar, 40, was indicted on charges of accessory after the fact to first-degree murder and tampering with evidence. The couple was arrested in Brooklyn, N. Y., where they had recently moved their family after leaving a Melbourne home they rented for a short time.

            The elder Riccio’s body was discovered by the side of a dirt road in a remote area in south Brevard County. The body had been dismembered so that it could be placed in trash bags.

            The Grand Jury heard testimony from the Brevard County Medical Examiner, two Brevard County Sheriff’s Office Agents, and two sheriff’s office Crime Scene Investigators, said Assistant State Attorney Michael Hunt who presented the case.

            The couple is in jail in New York awaiting extradition, said Hunt.