MANDEL: Found not criminally responsible of killing his wife, Ontario man wants to move back to scene of slaying
· Toronto Sun
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Michele Danese wants to be released to the home where he brutally murdered his wife five years ago.
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Not surprisingly, his Belleville neighbours are vigorously opposed.
Last year Danese, now 69, was found not criminally responsible due to his bipolar disorder on a charge of second-degree murder in the brutal March 2021 slaying of his wife, Susan Rosenberg-Danese.
Danese and his wife had worked as fitness instructors in his native Italy before returning to Toronto in 2002. He was then employed by the TDSB as a high school gym teacher for 18 years before retiring and moving to Belleville with his family.
Tragically, his wife knew all about his “major psychiatric disorder,” which was originally diagnosed as schizophrenia and then changed to bipolar disorder. According to the Ontario Review Board, his first reported psychiatric break was noted in 1996 and he was hospitalized at CAMH with delusions. He was hospitalized there again in 2004 — the same year he was charged with striking Rosenberg-Danese though the charges were later withdrawn.
Still, she stayed with him. Rosenberg-Danese had her husband sign a contract promising to take his medication, or else they couldn’t stay together.
Danese broke that contract in the most tragic fashion.
Rosenberg-Danese was texting others about her growing concern over her husband’s worsening symptoms from not taking his medication.
“Nights are terrifying,” she wrote on March 7, 2021, according to the agreed statement of facts reported by the Belleville Intelligencer .
Rosenberg-Danese also contacted a doctor. “I turn to God to get me through the night and I am turning to you for help now. He trusts you. Can you call him?”
But nothing would save her.
Wellness check conducted
After worried neighbours reported not seeing her for days, the police conducted a wellness check on March 9 and found the 62-year-old mother of two lying in a pool of blood in her bed, a kitchen knife in her neck. She’d been dead for at least 24 hours. Her husband was located in his pajamas in the next room, calmly lying in bed with his eyes closed.
In a 2024 interview, Danese described hearing voices telling him to take a knife out of a chest of drawers — he said he had a large collection of knives as well as three rifles — and go to his wife’s room, knock three times before opening and then put a knife “on her neck.” He said at the third touch, he was supposed to “cut her” and then leave the knife, which he did. He closed the door and went back to bed.
Found NCR in March 2025, he had a hearing before the Ontario Review Board just a few months later to discuss his annual privileges while in the forensic program at Ontario Shores for Mental Health Sciences. Already, Danese was asking to have passes into the community, and eventually a return to the family home where one of his sons still lives.
The board determined it was premature — he remained a threat and his history of non-compliance with medication was a serious concern.
“The possibility of moving into the family home is laden with obstacles. There is a strong sentiment of fear in the community,” the panel noted.
Danese’s disposition included eventual community access — but not within 200 metres of his old neighbourhood or his neighbours.
Concerns from neighbours and friends
At his recent annual review, Danese repeated his goal was a conditional discharge so he can return to the family home. And once again, the board heard concerns from neighbours and friends about their fear.
Danese had a successful year using community passes without incident, the board wrote in its decision. He’s now taking injectable psychotropic medication, denies hearing voices and has been calm and co-operative. The next step for his treatment team is discharging him to independent living with continued oversight and mental health supports.
But not back to the scene of his brutal slaying.
“His goal to return home to live notwithstanding the likely impact of this on others, including the neighbours who expressed their concerns about this in their victim impact statements, underlines the fact that there remains more work to be done in this area,” the panel concluded.
“The Board finds that it would be premature and contrary to the safety of the public to grant Mr. Danese a conditional discharge.”