A man allegedly shot at his next-door neighbors and then fatally shot himself on Monday, March 10, in Berkeley Township, N.J., the Berkeley Township Police Department (BTPD) said in a Tuesday, March 11 news release.
John Adamo, 54, allegedly shot Tom Kwatkoski outside of his home. Adamo then allegedly turned his gun on Tom’s wife Jill while she was inside. The BTPD responded to a call around 4:45 p.m. that there were two gunshot victims at the residence. Upon arrival, they found the married couple both suffering from gunshot wounds. They were airlifted to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, N.J., where they are in critical but stable condition.
Before Adamo was found dead inside his own home, the local SWAT teams surrounded the building “in an attempt to have him surrender.” After two and a half hours, the SWAT team forced entry inside, where they found him deceased from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The SWAT team also discovered a pressure cooker inside the home, and then neighbors evacuated for safety concerns that it was an explosive. The New Jersey State Police Bomb Squad confirmed it was not.
Getty
A neighbor told The New York Post that the Kwatkoski’s placed cameras that were facing Adamo’s house, as well as a “No Trespassing” sign.
“I don’t know what was going on with them, but it was back and forth and going on for years,” the neighbor added.
“I can’t understand how it could have possibly gotten to this, so it’s sad, very sad,” neighbor Deborah Nowakoski told CBS New York.
Stock image of police car.
Getty
“They’ve been in a longtime dispute. I don’t know what brought it to that point. They have the cameras aimed at each other’s houses, but in my book they were all nice,” neighbor Joe Spicciatie said, per CBS New York.
“We’re all friends in the neighborhood and, you know, we have parties together,” Louie Pascalli told the outlet. “[There was] always friction, but never anything serious like this.”
