Friends remember mother, daughter murdered
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LEBANON, Tennessee (WSMV) — Police are still investigating the double murder-suicide that took place in two counties on Monday.
Shaun Varsos killed his wife and her mother in their Whispering Oaks Drive home in Lebanon on Monday morning before he returned to Nashville where he died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Family, friends and neighbors are still devastated from the “senseless” murder of Deborah Sisco and her daughter Marie Varsos, who had recently filed for a divorce from Shaun Varsos.
Friends said Sisco was a friend to everyone.
“She never knew anybody that was not a friend. It was like you were almost instant friends when you talked to her,” said Eleanor Zimmerle, a friend and coworker of Sisco.
Zimmerle worked with Sisco for 18 of the 40 years Sisco was at AT&T.
Sisco was also President of the Communication Workers of America Local 3808 chapter based in Nashville.
“We met on multiple occasions like this,” said Cindy Massey, punching her fist together. “Debbie had a little bit of a different edge, absolutely was the epitome of calm. She was well prepared.”
CWA Local 3808 remembered Sisco as someone who lived to fight for others.
“Her fight for Marie was one of the few fights she ever lost. She never backed down, she never gave up, she never turned anyone away,” Dorthy Savant said in a statement posted on the CWA website. “She intimidated people who needed and deserved to be intimidated, with her steely gaze that drilled a hole right through a person, her calm, quiet questions that got to the heart of any matter, and her fierce and total loyalty to the membership to whom she was devoted.”
She will be missed by so many within the company.
“I cannot verbalize the respect they had for her. We are all in the same boat. It’s a huge loss,” said Massey.
“I was devastated. She did not deserve that, neither did her daughter,” said Zimmerle.
Massey said Sisco was family oriented and kept her children first.
“Debbie has spoken to me often about Marie, proud of Marie and what she did for a living,” said Massey.
“If anybody, she deserved to be able to enjoy her retirement, and she didn’t get that opportunity,” said Zimmerle.
Marie Varsos filed for divorce from Shaun Varsos on March 4 and obtained an order of protection from her estranged husband on March 8. Shaun Varsos was arrested on March 11 on a charges of false imprisonment and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon on March 11.
On Monday, Shaun Varsos drove to Wilson County where he shot and killed Marie Varsos and Sisco. After shooting the women, Varsos drove back to Bellevue and took his own life on the side of Harpeth Knoll Road near the Varsos’ Beech Bend Drive home.
“We are devastated that the Ex Parte Order of Protection that our client, Marie Varsos, obtained on March 8, 2021, which was in effect at the time of her death, was not enough to keep she and her mother, Deborah Sisco, from being the latest victims of domestic violence in Tennessee,” Karla C. Miller, the attorney who was representing Marie Varsos in the divorce case, said in a statement. “Their deaths will serve as a grim reminder that an Order of Protection along is not the solution to the problem of domestic violence, and we hope this tragedy will result in a renewed effort on the part of our lawmakers to address the systemic issues related to protection of domestic assault victims and the prosecution of their abusers.”
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