Dylan McDermott lost his mother to gun violence.

A feature about the 56-year-old actor in People magazine briefly mentioned that when McDermott was 5, his mother, Diane, was shot to death. Waterbury, Conn., police originally ruled the incident an accident but according to the Republican-American newspaper, local authorities reopened the case in 2011 after Dylan called with a question about Diane’s death.

They ultimately ruled the incident a homicide after finding enough evidence to bring murder charges against a man named John Sponza, who was dating Diane at the time. Dylan was standing outside their apartment door after John had kicked him out. The paper says Dylan heard gunshots and “stood, stuck outside as police and an ambulance arrived.”

John told police that Diane committed suicide, but a deeper dive into the details determined that was false. The medical examiner said the gun found near Diane wasn’t used at the scene, but the actual murder weapon would have been pressed to the back of her head.

Police Superintendent Michael Gugliotti was puzzled by the details, telling the paper, “What troubled me was that there was very little follow-up other than the statement Sponza had given to police. Sponza is telling the police that night that he very rarely, if ever, had arguments, yet everyone we spoke to, including Dylan, who was only 5 at the time, remembered very violent, vicious arguments. Dylan vividly recalls the amount of times, not only flashing the gun, but pointing it at the kid, saying, ‘Shut up and get out of here.’ He’s still probably traumatized by that.”

Sponza was never charged with Diane’s murder. He was killed in 1972 and was found in the trunk of a car. He allegedly had ties to organized crime.

Police questioned why Dylan felt the need to revisit the case after decades had gone by. “He said, ‘In order for me to survive and to get where I am today, I needed to bury that moment in my life deep within myself,’” Gugliotti recalled. “He said it wasn’t until recently ‘that I’ve come to the point in my life where I’m able to begin to process all of this.’”

In 1979, Dylan’s father, Ricard McDermott, married Eve Ensler, best known for her play “The Vagina Monologues.” She later adopted him.