A troubled Queens man may have committed suicide by fireworks yesterday.
Horrified relatives discovered Theodore Ellinghaus Jr., 50, dead in the second-floor hallway of his house on 111th Avenue in South Ozone Park at 9:28 a.m. — after the powerful M80 he was holding to his stomach exploded, police said.
“I’m mourning my son,” said the victim’s anguished father, Theodore Ellinghaus Sr., who was inside the home during the blast.
The blast ripped off two fingers from Ellinghaus Jr.’s hand and tore a hole through his stomach, leaving his organs exposed, sources said. The NYPD’s bomb squad responded to the scene, but determined it was an isolated incident. No one else was injured.
Cops described Ellinghaus Jr. as emotionally disturbed. Sources told The Post that police were investigating whether he killed himself with the fireworks, at least partly because of the way he was holding the lit device so close to his body when it went off.
But his distraught family refused to believe the victim would take his own life.
“It was an accident,” Ellinghaus Sr. said, with tears welling up in his eyes. “It went off. He wouldn’t kill himself. He told me he wouldn’t kill himself.”
Still, neighbors painted a picture of a man who had grown increasingly paranoid.
The former car-repair worker had been unemployed for six months and recently begun installing surveillance cameras in his home, fearing that people were out to get him.
“He said people were coming to the closet and the window,” said neighbor Frank Kleineisel, 42.
The victim recently admitted he suffered from depression and had a doctor’s visit scheduled for yesterday, the neighbor said.
“I saw him shoveling snow outside [Sunday]. He looked depressed.
“He said, ‘I was on medication for depression and the doctor stopped it,’ ” said Kleineisel, 42. “His father said he had an appointment with a new psychiatrist [yesterday] morning.”
Neighbor William Foley, 28, agreed that the victim “had problems. I’ve known him for 20 years.”
Ellinghaus Sr. — who lived downstairs from his son with Ellinghaus Jr.’s twin brother — said he didn’t find it unusual that his son kept fireworks in the house.
“All kids have fireworks,” the heartbroken father said.
Additional reporting by Lorena Mongelli