A Pennsylvania father was arrested Friday and charged with fatally shooting the mother of his young son and the boy’s grandmother after breaking into the victims’ New Jersey home, prosecutors said.
Junior Edwards, 37, allegedly carried out the sickening double homicide early Wednesday morning while his 8-year-old son was inside the Willingboro Township home, the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office said.
Edwards, of Lansdowne, was slapped with two counts of first-degree murder and related charges in the shooting death of 33-year-old Catherine Nunez, who shared the son with the suspect, and her 54-year-old mother, Marisol Nunez.
Both women suffered multiple gunshot wounds and were pronounced dead at the scene in an upstairs bedroom.
Edwards allegedly broke into the home by smashing a first-floor window around 4 a.m. on Wednesday, according to prosecutors.
The child was home during the gunfire but was not injured.
The alleged murder weapon, a handgun, was found outside the home, the prosecutor’s office said.
Authorities did not reveal a motive for the fatal attack, but the victims’ family reportedly claimed Edwards was a “monster who had threatened them many times.”
“The American dream turned into an American nightmare,” Wilson Nunez, Marisol’s brother and Catherine’s uncle, told the Courier Post.
When Catherine traveled into New York City once a week for her utility firm job, her mother, Marisol, would watch the youngster overnight, the grieving loved one said.
“This loss has left our family devastated, and it’s a reminder of how fragile life can be,” the family said in a GoFundMe page launched to raise money for funeral costs.
Edwards is also charged with home invasion burglary with a firearm, unlawful possession of a weapon, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and endangering the welfare of a child.
He was hit with the charges while already in custody on unrelated charges in Philadelphia.
