People_USA_April_24_2017

PEOPLE April 24, 2017 61

More than 30 years after Cheryl Pierson Cuccio asked a classmate to kill her abusive

father, she’s sharing her story in the hope of helping othersByCAITLIN KEATING

popular cheerleader at Newfield High

School in Selden, N.Y., Cheryl Pierson

seemingly had an enviable life. The

16-year-old junior came from an

upper-middle-class family, had a seri-

ous boyfriend, Rob Cuccio, and was

studying to become a beautician. So

when she casually mentioned a recent

murder-for-hire plot in the headlines while sitting

in homeroom one morning and asked if any of her

classmates would kill someone for money, no one

took her seriously—no one, except for Sean Pica.

He would, he said, for a price: $1,000.

Not even three months later, on the morning of

Feb. 5, 1986, Cheryl found her father, James Pier-

son, 42, a local electrician, lying facedown in the

snow, bleeding in their driveway. He’d been shot

five times in the head and chest with a .22-cal. rifle.

“I was shocked and horrified,” she says. Then

Cheryl came to a quick realization. “I knew what

happened... Sean went through with it.”

Soon the whole world would know as well. One

The

Cheerleader &

the Hit Man

HIGH SCHOOL

PLOT

Sean Pica is led

to Suffolk County

Jail in 1987.

Left: Cheryl

Pierson at

Newfield High

School.

HAIR & MAKEUP: STACY BENEKE/ZENOBIA; TOP RIGHTFROM LEFT: COURTESY CHERYL PIERSON CUCCIO;KEVIN KENNEDY/AP

Photographs by ELINOR CARUCCI