Neighbors have characterized the Columbia man accused of strangling his young daughters Sunday as "the picture of suburbia" - always outside gardening and playing with the children.

"He seemed like a perfectly normal fellow," said John Jefferson, who lives near the family's Harmel Drive home.

But behind closed doors, Robert Emmett Filippi could be controlling, unpredictable and even abusive, his former wife, Karen York, said in an interview this week with The Sun.

Both his former wife and estranged wife have accused Filippi of physical assault and intimidation.

Naoko Nakajima, 29, and Filippi, 43, had been embroiled in a divorce and custody dispute over their 2-year-old daughter Lindsey and 4-year-old daughter Nicole since January, according to court papers.

In divorce papers, Nakajima said Filippi "has persistently engaged in ... excessively vicious conduct ... and has assaulted [her] both physically and verbally, and has harassed and humiliated her on numerous occasions."

Neither Nakajima nor Filippi had filed for a domestic-violence protective order, according to court records and James B. Kraft, Filippi's attorney.

"That's never been an issue that has been raised," Kraft said.

Based on her relationship with Filippi, York said she thought his wife's effort to win custody of his daughters would have enraged him.

"You didn't cross him," she said. "He wasn't normal in terms of the way he handled his anger."

Something as simple as a hand towel hanging crookedly on a rack could ignite a fit of violence, York said in a telephone interview. She filed for divorce less than a year after she married him at age 26 in August 1986, she said.

The two met in 1984 in an art class at Pennsylvania State University, where Filippi was an undergraduate science student, and York was a graduate art student.

Filippi later earned a bachelor's and master's degree in mineral economics from Penn State, a university spokesman said. York earned a master's in art in 1986, the spokesman confirmed.

Throughout the brief marriage, York said, Filippi would throw things at her, follow her and lock her out of the house. The marriage ended when Filippi beat her, she said.

She moved more than 2,000 miles away from their State College, Pa., home and said she virtually never spoke to him again because she feared he might try to harm her.

York did not file assault charges against him, but she said she did document the violence in her divorce paperwork. The divorce was finalized in 1988, she said.

The couple did not have children, but York has remarried and has a 7-year-old child, she said.

During their marriage, York often saw Filippi interact with his then-young niece and nephew, she said. He was very good with little ones, she said, and always liked children.

"I have no doubt he loved his children," York said. "But it's the control thing that probably got to him."