BERKELEY TOWNSHIP, New Jersey — The Jersey Shore maniac who shot his next-door neighbors in a fury was a combative alcoholic who had been in a years-long feud with the couple, The Post has learned.
He may have been set off when the victims installed new security cameras and “No Trespassing” signs that called him out by name, neighbors said.
John Adamo, 54, turned the gun on himself after shooting Tom and Jill Kwatkoski at about 4:45 p.m. on Monday in the bayside Berkeley Township community, which sits just south of Toms River.
The Kwatkoskis were airlifted to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, where they’re both in critical but stable condition.
Adamo was found dead inside his own home, where he retreated after the attack.
“[The cameras] were facing [Adamo’s] house, and around them Tom put the ‘No Trespassing’ sign,’” the neighbor said. “And he wrote, ‘Mr. and Mrs. Adamo’ with three exclamation points on the signs.”
The feuding homeowners quickly got into an argument, and Adamo tore one of the cameras off the house before events escalated to their bloody conclusion, the neighbor — who asked not to be named — said.
“I don’t know what was going on with them, but it was back and forth and going on for years,” the local added.
Authorities said Adamo shot husband Tom Kwatkoski outside his Drake Drive home, then turned his gun on the neighbors’ house and shot wife Jill inside.
Afterward, he went to his own $1 million home next door and, for the next two and a half hours, brushed off overtures from the local SWAT teams that surrounded the home, according to Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley Billhimer.
One neighbor said he heard gunshots and watched minutes later as an armored vehicle rolled down the street with SWAT teams in tow.
“I knew what they were going to do,” said the resident, a retired cop. “It was just before it was getting dark and they got to get it done before it gets too dark. And then bam! They blew the door off John’s house and it shook my whole house.”
Officers swarmed the home — which sits on a small canal just minutes from the beach — and found Adamo with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in an upstairs bedroom, authorities said.
Neighbors describe the Kwatkoskis as extraordinarily nice people.
“Their son, Trevor, is a cancer survivor and they did all sorts of fundraising and volunteer work for cancer,” the neighbor said.
Adamo was a different story. A source familiar with the family said Adamo had been cut off from his kin for years because of his battles with the bottle and a squabble over his deceased father’s estate.
“I found out about an hour ago, and my first instinct was yeah, I’m upset. I’m not that upset,” the source said.
“I’m not surprised that he killed himself — but I’m more surprised that he followed through with doing something like this to somebody else.”
Like many who struggle with drinking, Adamo could be great fun to be around — until he hit that point in the night where he’d had just a few too many, the source said.
“If you could catch John when he was sober, he was a lot of fun,” the source added. “He wasn’t a bad person … but he was one of those people that when he drank to a certain point and hit that apex — he kept going to keep himself there.”
“He was convinced he didn’t have a problem and he never listened to anybody,” the source added. “He had a lot of issues — but he was one of those, ‘a lot of bark and no bite’ types. And it was always when he got drunk.”
An old-school metalhead from Brooklyn who once passed the Series 7 broker exam, Adamo worked in the stock market years earlier but left for reasons that remain unclear, the source said.
He had been doing some sort of safety-inspection work at construction sites.
He’s also been at war with the neighbors — one of whom described him as a “nutjob.”
“It’s been a running feud,” the neighbor said. “And John’s a nut. There was always friction. Years! This has been going on for years.”
