Lois Colley killing stuns quiet North Salem

NORTH SALEM - Eighty-three-year-old socialite Lois Colley spoke with someone about 3 p.m. Monday. Just more than two hours later, a caretaker at her Titicus Road home found her dead near the garage.

State police say the wife of millionaire McDonald's franchise owner Eugene Colley died of blunt force trauma to the head. The caretaker is not a suspect and there was no sign of forced entry, police said. It does not appear anything was taken other than a small fire extinguisher, but police are not saying whether they suspect it was used to kill Colley and they have little to offer by way of a motive or possible suspects.

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The killing has rocked North Salem, said Town Supervisor Warren Lucas, whose parents were friends with Colley for over 40 years.

"Our heart goes out the family. It’s a travesty. She was a very, very nice person. She always had a nice thing to say whenever you saw her," Lucas said. "You don’t have this happen too often in Westchester or in our town. It’s a very sad situation especially when you know the family."

The caretaker called a relative of Colley's after spotting her body on the laundry room floor of the home at 258 Titicus Road, part of the couple's 300-acre hilltop estate known as Windswept Farm. The relative called 911 and a town police officer was the first to respond shortly after 5:30 p.m. Monday.

"This is very early on in the fact-finding phase," said state police Lt. Paul DeQuarto, who is with the state police's Bureau of Criminal Investigation. "We are using state and local resources in the investigation."

Police said Wednesday morning that no arrests had been made and the investigation continued.

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The property, which contains several houses and barns, is just down the road from town police headquarters. The buildings are set far back on the sprawling lot and are not visible from the road. A lone police officer in an SUV sat in front of the property's long driveway Tuesday morning.

It was the first homicide in the town in four years.

“This is very uncharacteristic for that quiet community," DeQuarto said.

Colley was an active volunteer and socialite who was dedicated to her family. Her husband made his fortune building an empire of roughly 100 McDonald's restaurants. The couple contributed to numerous local causes, including the North Salem Open Land Foundation and the North Salem Volunteer Ambulance Corps.

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"They've been part of the North Salem community for a long time. They're a very close family," North Salem town historian Susan Thompson said, noting that Eugene Colley and the couple's four grown sons — Bruce, 62, Bryan, 60, Cornelius, known as Neil, 58, and Dean, 56 — ride horses and that Lois did as well.

The family made headlines in 2003 after Bruce Colley's affair with Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, wife of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, led to the Cuomos' divorce.

The family is heavily involved in local fox hunting, and Lois Colley was a constant presence. "She goes to every hunting event," Thompson said. "It isn't a hunt without her there."



Thompson said she never heard someone say an unkind word about Lois Colley, who also played golf and was a member of the Waccabuc Country Club.

Regarding the homicide investigation, Thompson said, "People are just stunned."

Before his rise in the McDonald's business, Eugene Colley, known as Gene, owned a bakery in Brewster, said Cynthia Curtis, chair of the North Salem Planning Board. Gene and Lois Colley lived in Brewster before buying Battery Farm in North Salem and then Windswept Farm.

Lois Colley was a longtime member of the Brewster-Carmel Garden Club.

The family business, the Colley Group, is based in Croton Falls on Front Street. Neighbors and workers at other businesses on the street said they see Gene Colley walking to the office, and said that Lois Colley was "always very nice" when she passed them on the street.

DeQuarto asked the public to contact the police, "Whether it is something really minor or something really obvious.​"

Anyone with information about Colley's death is asked to call investigators at 914-277-3177 or the police 24-hour line at 914-769-2600.

The last homicide in North Salem was on June 2, 2011, when Epifanio Medina, a marijuana dealer, was abducted in Passaic, New Jersey, driven to the woods off Dingle Ridge Road, robbed of jewelry and beaten to death. A Florida man was convicted of murder, and another man and a woman were convicted of lesser roles.

Map: North Salem homicide

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