Lois Colley, a Westchester County socialite and the wife of a millionaire McDonald’s franchise owner, was found dead this week, the New York Times reports. Police said they believe she was murdered.

Colley, 83, died from a blunt force trauma late on Monday afternoon. A caretaker found her body on the floor of the laundry room in her home at Windswept Farm, the 300-acre Colley Estate on Titicus Road in North Salem, N.Y. Police said there was no evidence of forced entry, the Times reports. The only thing missing from the home was a small fire extinguisher.

“This is a shocking and disturbing crime in what is usually a quiet and peaceful town in Westchester County,” Lieutenant Paul DeQuarto said at a press conference. According to The Journal News, Colley’s death is the first homicide in North Salem in four years: the last was on June 2, 2011, when a marijuana dealer, Epifanio Medina, was abducted in Passaic, New Jersey, driven to North Salem, robbed, and beaten to death in the woods off Dingle Ridge Road.

Police said Tuesday that they had no suspects and no possible motive.

Colley was an active volunteer and socialite in North Salem, the News reports. She and her husband Gene, who built an empire of around 100 McDonald’s restaurants, contributed to a number of local charitable institutions. “They’ve been part of the North Salem community for a long time. They’re a very close family,” town historian Susan Thompson said.

Colley was also a fixture of the local fox hunting scene. “She goes to every hunting event,” Thompson said. “It isn’t a hunt without her there.”

Meanwhile, the New York Post reports that Colley was the mother of “the polo-playing cad who cuckolded Gov. Andrew Cuomo by having an affair with his then-wife Kerry Kennedy.”


Image via LoHud.com/The Journal News. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.