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Fatal Encounters record · Independent third-party dataset

William Graziano

April 27, 2020 · Colonia, Middlesex County

Details as recorded

Every value below is shown exactly as Fatal Encounters recorded it.[1]

Name as recorded
William Graziano
Age as recorded
57
Gender as recorded
Male
Race as reported
Race unspecified
Date of the injury resulting in death
April 27, 2020
Location as recorded
Colonia, Middlesex County379 Dukes Road Colonia NJ 7067 Middlesex
Highest level of force as recorded
Gunshot

Where the dataset places it

The location Fatal Encounters recorded for this death: Colonia, Middlesex County

The marked point is the dataset's own geocoded location for this record, as recorded. Every other New Jersey record in the dataset is shown in gray. A point on a map is where a death was recorded, not a finding about anyone.

Agencies as recorded

Agency or agencies involved, as recorded: Woodbridge Police Department

An agency appears here because it appears in the record's as-reported agency field, nothing more. Its presence is not a claim of fault or responsibility.

Department pages (matched by this site at high confidence)

The source's account

Fatal Encounters' description of the incident, verbatim. This is the source project's own third-party narrative, not this site's reporting.

At 7:35 a.m., Woodbridge police received a 911 call from a man claiming to have hostages and weapons. The man was suicidal, reported he had shot his dog and was having medical problems and problems in his marriage. Police arrived and spoke with the man. He was alone. The man stopped answering his phone, and police entered the home at 1:35 p.m. and found the man's dead body in an upstairs bedroom.

Source reported by Fatal Encounters: https://patch.com/new-jersey/woodbridge/woodbridge-man-57-found-dead-after-hours-long-police-standoff (external link, as recorded in the dataset).

If you are a family member of the person named here, or represent one, and something in this record is wrong, or you want the record removed, requests go through the corrections page. Every request is checked against the source record.

This is one of 19 New Jersey records the dataset dates to 2020, and one of 26 it holds for Middlesex County across 2000 to 2021. Browse every New Jersey Fatal Encounters record by year.

Questions and answers

What does the Fatal Encounters dataset record about this incident?

Fatal Encounters records that William Graziano died on April 27, 2020 in Colonia, Middlesex County, with "Gunshot" as the highest level of force. Fatal Encounters is an independent, crowdsourced dataset of deaths that occurred during police encounters of any kind; a record is not a finding of fault or misconduct.

Which agency or agencies were recorded as involved?

The record's agency field reads "Woodbridge Police Department". Presence in that field means the agency appears in the record as reported, nothing more; it is not a claim of fault or responsibility by any officer or agency.

Where did this happen?

The record places the death in Colonia, Middlesex County, on April 27, 2020. The address as recorded is 379 Dukes Road Colonia NJ 7067 Middlesex.

Sources

  1. [1]Fatal Encounters, New Jersey subset. Fatal Encounters (fatalencounters.org). Row 3430. Derived from the public Fatal Encounters national dataset (coverage 2000-2021; collection ended December 2021), https://fatalencounters.org/. Retrieved July 10, 2026.