ISLIP, NY — A peaceful Long Island morning exploded into tragedy when a husband gunned down his wife in their driveway before turning the weapon on himself, leaving neighbors stunned and cops scrambling for answers. The chilling 911 call—“My husband’s trying to kill me”—was all Eileen Clifford could get out before the line went dead, and now, a quiet street is haunted by what came next.
It happened around 6:30 a.m. on Thursday, February 20, 2025, at a home on Mallar Avenue in Islip. Suffolk County police raced to the scene after Eileen’s desperate cry, only to find William Clifford, 73, sprawled in the front yard, a bullet through his head and a gun by his side. Steps away lay Eileen, 68, riddled with bullets—their driveway now a crime scene. Cops say it’s a clear-cut murder-suicide: William, a tugboat operator in Manhattan, shot his wife—an ex-American Airlines flight attendant known for her warm smile—then ended his own life with the legally owned pistol.
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No history of domestic trouble at the address, yet whispers of a loud fight the night before trickled out from neighbors to News 12 Long Island. What snapped in William? Investigators are still digging, but the community’s reeling. “Eileen was so kind—you’d never guess this,” one shell-shocked resident told reporters. William, often gone for work, kept to himself. That final, frantic 911 call, aired by the New York Post on February 22, paints a gut-wrenching picture of her last moments.
As of February 23, 2025, Islip’s left grasping for why a decades-long marriage ended in blood. Was it a hidden fracture—or a sudden break no one saw coming? The answers might be buried with the Cliffords, but the echoes of that morning won’t fade anytime soon.
