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A Family Shattered

Jennifer, Olivia, Oliver and Magnus Bernsdorff in a family photo from their Web site.

By Stephen Thompson of The Tampa Tribune and Mark Douglas of News Channel 8

Published: December 14, 2007

Updated: 12/14/2007 05:37 pm

Photo Gallery

When they met Thursday night, friends from church urged Jennifer Davis to go to the police, concerned about her ex-husband's violence toward her and his threats to keep their children from her.

The couple divorced in August, the father had custody of the boy and girl, and Davis had moved in with a woman with whom she had a romantic relationship.

On Friday, death touched them all.

Davis, 27, and her partner, Andrea Pisanello, 53, were killed in their Largo apartment. Davis' two children, 4-year-old Olivia Bernsdorff and 2-year-old Magnus Bernsdorff, were found dead at the family home in Clearwater. Their father, Pinellas County schoolteacher Oliver Bernsdorff, apparently shot himself to death while driving across the Sunshine Skyway.

Bernsdorff, 36, is suspected in the slayings of his wife and her partner, Largo police said, and in the deaths of his children, according to police in Clearwater.

Oliver Bernsdorff

As law enforcement officers worked the three death scenes, friends reacted with shock to news of the carnage.

"I had thought he had the potential to kill her, yes," said Jackie Brown, a church friend and volunteer abuse counselor. "I didn't think it had escalated to the point where he would act out at this point, no. It never occurred to me he would kill his own children, no."

"She was the sweetest, most loving woman in the world," said Diana Fraser, another friend of Davis' from Unitarian Universalists of Clearwater. "He just went out of his mind — he had to be. The separation was driving him out of his mind for him to do this."

Jennifer Davis

Pisanello and Davis recently moved in together, Fraser said. Bernsdorff, Davis and Pisanello had attended the church for several years and were deeply involved in its activities.

Pisanello has a young daughter from a previous relationship, and the girl is about the same age as the Bernsdorff children, Fraser said. With her marriage behind her, Davis was looking forward to her future.

"I think she was happy to be out and to have found somebody she could live with that understood her," Fraser said. "I hate to say it, but I feel sorry for him, too. It was too much and he couldn't handle it."

Here's an account of Friday's events from police reports and interviews:

In Largo: The bodies of Davis and Pisanello were found early Friday in an apartment at the Monterey Lakes complex, 7501 Ulmerton Road.

The investigation began with a report of shots fired about 6:45 a.m., Largo police Lt. Mike Loux said. Church member Brown said Pisanello's 4-year-old daughter was in the apartment when Davis and Pisanello were slain, and neighbors reported seeing authorities carrying the girl, with no apparent injuries, from the apartment after the shooting.

On the Sunshine Skyway: Just before 11 a.m., a state trooper saw a van swerving on the bridge and signaled for it to pull over on the Manatee County side of the bridge. The trooper followed the van as it rolled to a stop off the bridge in a stand of mangroves and, checking inside, found the driver dead.

Investigators had not positively identified the man, who died from a gunshot wound to the head, Manatee County sheriff's spokesman Dave Bristow said. A handgun was found in the van. The vehicle is registered to Bernsdorff.

In Clearwater: Police positively identified the two children as Bernsdorff's on Friday evening. They were found at Bernsdorff's address, 2068 Powderhorn Drive, Clearwater police said.

Debt And Divisions

In August, Bernsdorff filed for divorce from his wife. They entered into a settlement that gave him primary custody of their children, court records show. Monday would have been the couple's eighth wedding anniversary. Thursday would have been Olivia's fifth birthday.

Initially, the divorce settlement called for Bernsdorff's wife, who was unemployed at the time, to pay $200 a month, but once she got a job with Hospice of Florida Suncoast, she was required to pay $800 a month as of October. By the end of the following month, she was $1,850.55 in arrears.

The divorce records show that Oliver Bernsdorff was heavily in debt, including $135,000 in student loans, $27,000 owed the Internal Revenue Service, a $33,000 private loan and roughly $50,000 in credit card debt. The home on 2068 Powderhorn Drive was in his wife's and his mother's names "due to liability issues," and he was "not financially able to refinance the mortgage," the records show.

At one point in their settlement, it stated that "there shall be no overnight visitation or contact'' between the children and "any new girlfriend/boyfriend" until the relationship had been established for six months. But then the wording was crossed out with a pen or pencil.

Andrea Pisanello

This was at least the second time Bernsdorff was divorced. In 1990, his then-wife, Crystal, divorced the Colombia native after two years of marriage. Her new husband said Friday that she would only say Bernsdorff was violent toward her and she thinks he is capable of killing.

Bernsdorff's mother, Jutta, declined to comment when reached by telephone. At an address on record as Pisanello's, on Cumberland Drive off Belcher Road in Largo, a woman who answered the door said she had been Pisanello's partner, but they recently separated. She would not elaborate or give her name.

Online, One Happy Family

Bernsdorff taught for the Pinellas County School District for 13 years, earning $41,000 a year. According to his Web page, Bernsdorff was an adult basic education and GED prep instructor with the Clearwater Adult Education Center and was studying for his doctorate in education.

Olivia Bernsdorff

Officials at the University of South Florida's St. Petersburg campus say he was scheduled to start teaching there as an adjunct instructor this spring.

Bernsdorff has a master's degree in education from the University of South Florida and a bachelor's degree in political science and criminal justice from Excelsior College in New York. He graduated in 1992 from the Broward Police Academy.

Bernsdorff designed two Web pages, one that serves as his résumé and another as a family page.

The family home page was updated May 7 and shows photos of Bernsdorff and his two children. A message at the top reads: "Our family is going through major changes right now ... please stay tuned."

Magnus Bernsdorff

The site also includes links to pages with more family photos and letters he wrote to his children before they were born. In one to his daughter, who was born in 2002, he wrote:

"I think also about the world you are coming into. I think of the pain and suffering abundant in these times. What gives me hope is the stories of the lives of those before you, who were born into hurricanes of turmoil. They not only rose out of the destruction, but they rebuilt the world around them, and tried and oft succeeded in making that world a better place."

To his son, who was born in 2005, he wrote:

"You come to a house of love. A circle of friends made up of decent and caring people. A smaller community of faith in humanity and thirst for knowledge, wisdom and peace, and a larger community that will need you to help make it better."

Pages designated for his wife contain only photos.

So many deaths leave a big gap in the lives of those left behind.

In a statement Friday, the hospice said, "We are deeply saddened by the deaths of our co-workers, Jennifer and Andrea. They will be greatly missed. Our organization values life and the strong bonds of friendship and family. We know firsthand how painful the loss of those we care about can be and we mourn the loss of two members of The Hospice Family."

Brown, the church friend and adviser, said she met with Davis in a group setting Thursday night and encouraged her to approach the victim's advocate for the Largo Police Department.

"Jen is a very naïve person, almost childlike," Brown said.

"She didn't realize she was with such a bad guy and was just beginning to realize how bad he was."

Bernsdorff, Brown said, was good with Olivia and Magnus. "He was really devoted to those children, especially the little girl. He was really good with the kids."

She added that Bernsdorff resented the way things were going without his wife.

"He saw her as just ruining his life, leaving him with the children to raise … 'Poor me, poor, pitiful me, and bad Jen,' you know, for running off."

Tribune reporter Carlos Moncada and News Channel 8 reporters Jackie Barron and Krista Klaus contributed to this story. Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at (727) 215-3582 or spthompson@tampatrib.com.

Reader Comments

Posted by ( JamesD ) on December 14, 2007 at 9:57 a.m. ( Suggest removal )

This has not been a very good holiday season. The body count in Florida alone is getting way too high. Not to mention what has happened in Nebraska and Colorado among the regular killings that go on in places like Detroit and DC.