NC woman remembers mom who died during power outage caused by Moore County power grid attacks

Up to 40,000 residential and business customers were without power during a Dec. 3, 2022, shooting attack at two different electrical substations in Moore County.

One family paid the ultimate price: Pinehurst resident Karin Zoanelli died at the age of 87. When the power went out, so did Zoanelli’s electronic oxygen machine. Zoanelli, who needed the oxygen tank for heart disease, was found dead in her Pinehurst home.

Her autopsy lists the attack on the substation as a contributing factor to her death.

“Since the power outage involved reportedly occurred in the setting of a criminal firearm attack on the regional electrical distribution substation, the manner of death is best classified as a homicide,” the autopsy read.

WSOC reporter Glenn Counts asked Zoanelli’s daughter, Barbara Vitarelli, if she felt her mother was murdered.

“I do. I absolutely do. It was murder. But for that power outage, she might still be here,” Vitarelli said of her mother. “So, I feel like even if you took one hour away from her, you stole her life, you stole my dad’s life.”

The North Carolina Medical Examiner’s Office agrees. The office found no contributory physical injury to Zoanelli’s body and no alcohol or drugs in her system. The autopsy says failure of her oxygen concentrator because of a power outage precipitated her demise.

“I think it was crucial for her to have that equipment at night to be able to recover from the day, and I do know that her breathing treatments were more frequent,” Vitarelli said of her mom.

Vitarelli added, “I just feel like you committed a crime. Whether you intended to cause somebody to lose their life is irrelevant to me. That happened in the course of the crime you committed. You should be held accountable for it.”

Vitarelli said her father, Bruno Zoanelli, spent 59 years of his life with his wife.

Bruno Zoanelli found his wife on the bedroom floor and left a message for his daughter.

“So I called — and this is like 5:30 a.m. — and he just said, ‘Hey she’s gone,’ and I’m like, ‘What do you mean she’s gone?’” Vitarelli said. “I’m thinking she fell or hurt her hip or whatever.

“He said, ‘Yeah, she couldn’t breathe. She tried to get up, and she collapsed and she died.’”

Nearly three years later, authorities still don’t know who shot the substations or why.

“I think he’s just going through the motions. I don’t think he’s really living,” Vitarelli said of her dad. “I don’t think his zest for life is there anymore. He’s just on some level waiting when it’s his turn.”

Vitarelli added the following about her parents, saying, “They were inseparable, like literally, they did not do anything without the other.”

Remembering Karin Zoanelli

The Zoanellis retired in Pinehurst more than a decade ago after working in the Washington, D.C., area. They were parents and grandparents.

They were an active couple despite Karin Zoanelli’s health problems, Vitarelli said.

“As my mom got COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease] and her condition worsened, the roles kind of flipped. My mom was always the one that took care of everything in the house,” Vitarelli said.

Karin Zoanelli was born in Germany before World War II. As a child, she remembered the Allied bombing raids.

“[She] didn’t talk much about the war,” Vitarelli said of her mom. “[She] lost her dad in an air raid, so it was just my grandmother and three kids.

“My mom was the oldest.”

After World War II ended in September 1945, Karin Zoanelli was a competitive figure skater and worked as a journalist for United Press International.

“Life started when she met my dad,” Vitarelli said of her mom. “That’s when her life started.”

Their love-at-first-sight story began on the beaches of Italy.

“My dad comes from a small town called Imperia, and she was there on vacation and she was introduced to him,” Vitarelli said of her parents. “It went very quickly. They got married and moved to Bermuda.”

Eventually, the couple moved to the United States.

WSOC reporter Glenn Counts contributed to this story.