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William M. Parente, a New York attorney under FBI investigation over an alleged multimillion-dollar investment fraud, killed his wife and two daughters and then himself in a Towson, Maryland, hotel room in April 2009, police said.

The four bodies were found April 20 in a 10th-floor room at the Sheraton Baltimore North, across from the Towson Town Center mall. A hotel employee discovered a man's body and called 911, and the three other victims were found in the room afterward.

The family had checked in days earlier and had not checked out on time. Betty Parente, 58, and the couple's daughters, Stephanie, 19, and Catherine, 11, died of blunt-force trauma and asphyxiation, according to authorities. Stephanie was a sophomore at nearby Loyola College.

Investigators said William Parente, 59, killed himself with a knife. Police said the killings were carried out over several hours, with Betty Parente attacked first, followed by Catherine, and later Stephanie after she returned from campus. Parente died the following morning.

At the time of his death, Parente was under FBI investigation over a scheme in which investors were potentially defrauded of about $20 million. Authorities said checks he had written to clients had bounced, and several investors reported losing large sums after he died. Some accounts described the operation as a Ponzi scheme that had run for close to two decades.