January 19, 2008
Mortgage Lender Jumped To His Death
AP
An executive of a collapsed subprime mortgage lender jumped to his death from a bridge Friday, shortly after his wife’s body was found inside their New Jersey home, authorities said.
The deaths of Walter Buczynski, 59, and his wife, Marci, 37 — the parents of two boys — were being investigated as a murder-suicide, according to the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office.
Prosecutor Robert Bernardi said Evesham Township police went to the couple’s home in the Marlton section of the township around noon after a male caller asked them to check on Marci Buczynski. Her body was found in a bedroom.
Authorities would not provide further details on her death, saying only that she was pronounced dead at the scene and that the county medical examiner’s office would perform an autopsy Saturday.
About 20 minutes after her body was found, officers from the Delaware River and Bay Authority Police Department received reports that a man — later identified as Walter Buczynski — had parked his car on Delaware Memorial Bridge and jumped from the span.
Crews were searching for his body Friday night.
Bernardi said a motive for the apparent murder-suicide was not immediately clear. The couple’s children were being cared for by family members, Bernardi said.
Walter Buczynski was a vice president of Columbia, Md.-based Fieldstone Mortgage Co., a high-flying subprime mortgage lender that made $5.5 billion in mortgage loans and employed about 1,000 people as late as 2006.
However, it has since filed for bankruptcy and now has fewer than 20 employees. The company had recently filed court papers seeking approval to pay about $1.1 million in bonuses that would be divided among Buczynski and other staffers so the company could wind down its lending operations and go out of business.
A clear plastic plaque on William Komperda’s desk memorializes a 1990 deal that helped launch the made-in-Orange County subprime lending bonanza.
