Bernie Madoff's Sister Found Dead In Suspected Murder-Suicide, Authorities Say

The sister of the disgraced late financier Bernie Madoff was found dead from a suspected murder-suicide in south Florida, authorities said Sunday.

Sondra Wiener, 87, was found dead in her Boynton Beach home on Thursday afternoon, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said. She had a gunshot wound.

Authorities declined to fully identify the name of the man found dead with her, citing a request from his family, though his first name — Marvin — and age matches that of her husband. The deceased man was also said to be a resident in the home. Several news outlets reported that he was, in fact, her husband, 90-year-old Marvin Wiener.

The sheriff’s office said that the victim’s family has invoked Marsy’s Law, which allows crime victims to bar certain personal information from being disclosed.

The couple’s cause of death remains under investigation by the medical examiner.

A woman who identified herself as Marvin Wiener’s daughter-in-law, who is married to his son David, declined to comment when reached by a reporter for The Associated Press. She asked for privacy “at this time of grief.”

Bernie Madoff died last year at the age of 82 while serving out a 150-year prison term for orchestrating the largest Ponzi scheme in history.

His sister was reportedly one of his victims, with the New York Post reporting in 2009 that she was forced to sell her home after losing millions from his financial scam.

Madoff’s two sons, Andrew and Mark, died in the years after their father’s 2008 arrest. Mark died by suicide in 2010 at the age of 46, exactly two years after his father’s arrest. Andrew died in 2014 at 48 from lymphoma.

Madoff’s younger brother, Peter, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to falsifying documents and lying to regulators as part of the Ponzi scheme. He was released in 2020 after serving about nine years.

Madoff’s widow, Ruth, was last year reported to be living in Connecticut with the family of a former daughter-in-law. She was never charged in the Ponzi scheme and in the years after her husband’s arrest she publicly blamed him for what happened.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.