ANDERSON COUNTY, SC – A South Carolina woman and her husband have been arrested and charged after evidence emerged indicating they murdered four family members eight years ago in a bid to inherit over $100,000. The victims included the woman’s mother, grandmother, stepfather, and stepfather’s mother, who were slain in 2015, the DailyMail.com learned. The couple, Amy Vilardi, 40, and Ross, 36, appeared in court on Saturday and were denied bond.

The court documents obtained by DailyMail.com painted a chilling motivation for the crimes that shocked the rural community: records showed the couple sued the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department for the return of property seized with about $88,500 cash and other possessions that they claimed was theirs and of no evidentiary value.

The court battle over the grandmother’s estate exposed several dubious financial transactions that occurred in the months before the murders, possibly leading Amy Vilardi to assume she stood to inherit a $105,000 fortune.

Vilardi’s grandmother, Violet, had inherited a substantial sum of money when her husband died in 1985. A series of transactions transpired in the months leading up to the murders, culminating with Judge Newton’s decision in 2018 that the money belonged to Violet and would need to be distributed to her surviving children.

Investigators worked with the belief that the victims knew their killers from the start and said that the attacks were aggressive and personal. Detectives said Mike, Barbara, and Violet were killed by having their throats slit and Cathy was killed by a stab wound to the chest. A second lawsuit revealed how the Vilardis were sued almost a year before losing the claim to the estate and two years after the murders.