Sondra Wiener, Bernie Madoff’s sister, and her husband were found dead in their Boynton Beach, Fla., home on Thursday in an apparent murder-suicide, according to officials.
Deputies responded to a 911 call and discovered Ms. Wiener, 87, and her husband, Marvin, 90, both dead from gunshot wounds, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
According to the sheriff’s Facebook page and Twitter feed, medical examiners “arrived on the scene and took possession of both Marvin and Sondra.” The Medical Examiner’s Office will determine the cause of death.
Though the couple’s identities appeared on the Sheriff’s Office’s social media profiles, only Ms. Wiener was recognized in a statement from the office, which claimed the family “had invoked Marsy’s Law for the male,” which offers protections for crime victims.
Bernie Madoff, the mastermind of one of the greatest Ponzi scams in Wall Street history, died last year in a federal prison hospital after starting a 150-year sentence in 2009. Mr. Madoff’s oldest son, Mark, committed suicide in his Manhattan apartment early on the morning of the second anniversary of his father’s arrest on Dec. 11, 2010.
Ms. Wiener’s son, David Wiener, told The New York Post in 2009 that his mother was one of Mr. Madoff’s tens of thousands of victims. On paper, his approach resulted in losses of roughly $65 billion.