BERKELEY – Authorities in Ocean County are investigating an attempted double murder after a neighbor shot a husband and wife, then killed himself.
Police received a 911 call Monday around 4:45 p.m. regarding two gunshot victims at a home on Drake Drive in Berkeley Township. Officers found a man and woman both suffering from a gunshot wound.
The couple were airlifted to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune where they are each listed in critical but stable condition, authorities said.
The victims had been shot by their next-door neighbor, 54-year-old John Adamo. Adamo had shot the man while he was outside of his home, and then shot into the neighboring home – hitting the woman. Adamo then went back into his home.
The Ocean County Regional SWAT Team and the Ocean County Regional SWAT-Crisis Negotiating Team surrounded Adamo’s home in an attempt to have him surrender. After about two and a half hours, law enforcement entered the home and found Adamo in an upstairs bedroom, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
In the bedroom, authorities found a pressure cooker and out of precaution, neighboring homes were evacuated for safety concerns. However, it was later determined by a bomb squad that the pressure cooker was not an explosive.
Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer commended the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crime Unit, Berkeley Township Police Department, Ocean County Regional SWAT Team, Ocean County Regional SWAT-Crisis Negotiating Team, Ocean County Sheriff’s Office Crime Scene Investigation Unit, and New Jersey State Police Bomb Squad, for their collaborative efforts in connection with this investigation.
