A prominent New Jersey doctor well known for taking in foster kids was rocked by an unthinkable horror — when one of his adopted children allegedly stabbed𒊎 another to death in their home.
“Rest peacefully, angel,༺” Dr. Robert Gallo wrote on his Facebook page with a picture of his daughဣter Teia, 20.
Her foster b♈rother, Travis Gallo, 17, allegedly stabbed her repeatedly with a kitchen knife at around 5:30 p.m. Thursday in front of two other siblings at their Washington Township home, souཧrces said.
Their brother c💮alled 911, while another sister fled the home with no shoes on, so☂urces said.
“You could hear💧 people screaming,” a neighbor said🌞. “It was a nightmare.”
Teia and Travis had both been adopted by Gallo, an OB-GYN, as children. 𓄧The patriarch also adopted Teia’s biological sister, Destiny, and has nine kids of his own.
The physician told Tꦅhe Post he was at a loss to explain the tragedy that stunned his tranquil suburban neighborhood.
“He snapped,” Gallo said. “We still have a lo🦹t of unanswered quesꦕtions.”
🍌Travis Gallo was arrested at the scene and pleaded not guilty to murder as a juvenile in a Hackensack court Friday afternoon, officials said.
Prosecutors may♛ still charge him as an adult for the slaying.
Teia’s sister, Destiny Gallo, griജeved with her 🐬father on his Facebook page in a heart-wrenching post on Friday.
“She was so beautiful daddy,” she wrote of the Paramus Catholic HS graduate and Dominican College student. “She walked in your footsteps. You were her inspiration without☂ a d෴oubt and she loved you.”
Dr. Gallo said the family will help one another through 🐎the grief.
“We’re pretty strong people,” he said. “There’s a lot of love in this family. We’ll get through t🌟his.”
Sources said that Travis Gallo frequently fought with his sister🍷 and that the disputes sometimes turned violent.
The big-hearted doctor took Travis in a♎t age 3 for what 🅘was supposed to be a temporary arrangement until he could find the tot a permanent home.
But Gallo ♔grew attached to the boy and decided to keep him permanently.
“After you have them in your 𒉰house for a year and they call you Mommy and Daddy, it’s very difficult to turn them away,” he said.
Teia, who friends said had a boyfriend in the 🎃Army, was brought into the expanding household at age 4 with her sister.
A trove of pictures on Dr. Gallo’s Facebook page shows the grinning clan vacationing everywhere from Southern California to Bermud🐬a to Manhattan’s Little Italy.
“They are just a beautiful family, very kind, very decent,” a neighbor s🤪aid. “Thiওs is all just shocking.”
One set of photos taken the day befoജre the murder, on Christmas, shows Teia smiling broadly with her siblings.