(Douglas Healey)
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The Connecticut teen gunned down by his own dad during a botched break-in was happily playing an online game with buddies just hours before his tragic death, friends told The Post yesterday.
“He was the same old Tyler,” said Brett Rasile, describing how he and Tyler Giuliano, 15, played the building game Minecraft while chatting via Skype Wednesday at around 10 p.m.
“Nothing wrong with him at all.”
Another gamer pal from New Fairfield HS, Luke Capozzola, said, “He seemed perfectly normal to me. He was just joking around.”
Three hours later, a masked Tyler, dressed in black and armed with a knife, apparently tried to break into his aunt’s next-door home in New Fairfield.
She called her brother, Tyler’s teacher dad Jeffrey Giuliano, who raced over to her house with a semiautomatic pistol.
The masked teen lunged at his dad, who fired several shots, killing Tyler.
Jeffrey Giuliano — who teaches fifth grade and once worked for a security firm — had no clue the prowler was his adopted son until cops peeled off the ski mask.
Tyler’s pal Brett said that during their final Minecraft session, “he never said anything about going out. I never even knew he had a ski mask.
“He didn’t leave any evidence, any hints toward what he would do. I don’t know what caused him to snap.”
Tyler’s pal Luke said at their high school yesterday, “Everybody was sad and mourning Tyler.”
State cops are investigating whether Jeffrey Giuliano’s handgun was legally registered.
State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance said Tyler had no criminal history. Cops are searching Tyler’s computer and room for evidence that could explain his bizarre actions.
Darrell Long, who plays drums in the rock cover band Split Decision with Jeffrey Giuliano on guitar, said, “They were a very close family, and there were never any problems with” Tyler.
The freak incident stunned the town’s residents. They knew Tyler as a friendly kid who played soccer and wanted to join the Air Force, and his dad as a beloved educator known as “Mr. G.”
Residents were already on heightened alert after a burglar assaulted a woman who walked in on him Tuesday, and some neighbors wondered if that was fresh in Jeffrey Giuliano’s mind.
“It made everybody nervous,” said Rosemary Rasile, the mother of Tyler’s pal Brett.
Tyler’s biological mom, Tammy Binnette, 45, was in tears yesterday.
“This is the second child I lost,” wailed Binnette, who in 1993 fell asleep behind the wheel of a car after smoking crack cocaine and slammed into a utility pole — killing her 21-month-old daughter, Mariah.
Binnette’s extensive criminal history includes a prison stint for that fiery crash, which occurred when she was pregnant with Tyler’s older sister, Therese.
“Right now I’m struggling with my addiction,” said Binnette, whose recovery sponsor spent the day with her yesterday.
“I could have gone out there today and killed myself. I’m hanging on because if I went out and used again, it would be like I was shooting Tyler all over again.”
She said, “I don’t understand Tyler didn’t yell out and say, ‘Dad, it’s me!’ ”
She called Jeffrey and his wife “good people” for adopting her son, whom she hadn’t seen in five years.
“But something has to be done about this,” she said.
“I know he loved my son, but he still killed him. He fired [multiple] shots. He didn’t give him a chance. He needs to go to jail.”
Tyler, who was once a student in Giuliano’s class, was adopted several years ago with his sister Therese after their grandmother was unable to care for them.
“It was Tyler’s happiest day,” Rosemary Rasile said about the adoption party the Giulianos threw.
Brett said Tyler bragged that day: “I’m happy to be an official Giuliano.”