Detailed update on Tuesday's PA family massacre:49 y.o.vietnam veteran burst into estranged wife's house & shot 4 kids,killing 3 & critically wounded 4th,then killed self
Joe1orbit
Two days ago I posted a news item concerning yet another family massacre,
that had taken place over in Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Details were still very
sketchy, and I promised to provide an update, complete with names and ages of
our new mass murderer and his victims, as well as other info. I'm a little bit
late, but here is the promised update. I ALWAYS keep my promises.
It was Tuesday night, when an enraged and estranged hubby/Daddy stormed into
his wife's house, armed with a 9MM handgun. As soon as he broke in, he
immediately started shooting at his children, who were all gathered in the
living room, watching TV. His hated estranged wife WAS right there as well, but
our gunman deliberately chose to NOT aim at her, and didn't try to harm her at
all, physically. He did shoot FOUR children, killing 3 and critically wounding
the fourth. He shot them all in the head, and then concluded his rampage by
turning his trusty 9MM on himself. Yup, 'twas a good old-fashioned family
massacre-triple murder/suicide. One of the three dead children is NOT
Alejandro's biological child, but just a NEIGHBOR'S boy who happened to be
unlucky enough to be visiting the home at the time of the rampage.
Our gunman has now been officially identified as 49 year old Alejandro
DeJesus. The dead victims are a 6 year old bio daughter, a 22 year old bio son,
and the 14 year old neighbor boy. A 16 year old bio son was ALSO shot in the
HEAD, and remains hospitalized in critical condition. One interesting detail we
learn below is that Alejandro BOUGHT his 9MM gun on Saturday, only 3 DAYS
before undertaking this massacre. He certainly din't have a lot of time to
practice his shooting or get familiar with the gun, but he still used it VERY
effectively in terms of getting his chosen bloodbath mission accomplished.
Our gunman apparently had no criminal record at all, and so had no trouble
legally acquiring this gun. There was no waiting period at all, thanks to the
new "instant background check" system, that many states are using. Wouldn't
have made any difference, I bet. Alejandro had decided what he was going to do,
BEFORE he decided to buy the gun. And so a 3-14 day delay, forcing him to wait
for awhile before taking possession of the gun, would almost certainly not have
resulted in Alejandro deciding to abort this planned massacre.
We also get plenty of details on the history of domestic squabbles that
Alejandro and wife Camille had been involved in. She moved away from him in
1996, folowing an assault he committed upon her, she got an order of
protection, and she even called the police Monday night, after he CAME to her
house and demanded money AND custody of their 6 year old female slave. But it
was all for nought, and just 24 hours after that Monday visit, Alejandro came
back, armed and ready and eager to kill.
Like MANY societal victims who go on to commit 'illegal' murder, Alejandro
LEARNED his killing craft LEGALLY, by joining the armed forces and being
brainwashed, coerced, and molded into a mindless mass murderer, compelled to
kill complete strangers upon the command of a 'superior officer'. It was AFTER
his brutal brainwashing and forced mass murder activities, that Alejandro began
to suffer from mental problems and took to ALTERING his brain chemistry with
drugs and alcohol, as a way of trying to COPE with the horrific trauma of his
4-5 years of Navy service, almost certainly in the GENOCIDAL Vietnam War,
between 1968 and 1972.
Pathetic, your diseased society takes CHILDREN and malevolently brainwashes
them into committing mass murder of total strangers, calling this "legal
murder" because the diseased and bloodthirsty society wants to engage in a
genocidal war, and then afterwards, the brutalized and brainwashed child is
left to COPE with the reality of what they were forced to do, and DEMONIZED if
they dare to later commit any "illegal" murders, which in reality are FAR more
JUSTIFIABLE than the legal murders that society forced them to engage in.
If you would like to view a photo showing ONLY the 16 year old son-slave who
was shot in the head but is still alive, in critical condition, you can point
your web browser to:
http://www.msnbc.com/local/WCAU/136600.asp
Unfortunately, I have not located an online photo of Daddy Alejandro himself.
Take care, JOE
The following appears courtesy of today's Reuters news wire:
Police: Child killer's gun unchecked
March 26, 1999
Reuters
(MEDIA) - Police say the man who shot and killed his children Tuesday night
bought a gun Saturday without having a lengthy background check. Investigators
say Alejandro DeJesus was able to walk into the Downingtown Farmers Market and
walk out with the 9mm pistol. No background check was made because he had no
criminal record, had not been judge mentally ill and was not the subject of an
active order of protection. DeJesus allegedly burst into the home of his
estranged wife Tuesday night, and killed his daughter, 6-year-old Felicia, his
son, 22- year-old Alejandro Jr. and a 14-year-old neighbor, Aaron Faulk.
-----------------------------------------------------------
The following appears courtesy of the 3/25/99 online edition of The
Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper:
The protections she sought could not save the children
In Media, a man killed two offspring, a neighbor and himself. His wife had
tried to break ties.
By Anne Barnard,
Mary Anne Janco
and Rachel Scheier
INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS
Camille DeJesus did everything she could to protect herself and her children.
She took the children and moved out after her husband assaulted her in 1996.
She won a court order to keep him away. And after he showed up at her Media
apartment Monday night, demanding cash and custody of their 6-year-old
daughter, she notified police.
But on Tuesday night, less than an hour after police had come by to check on
the family, Alejandro DeJesus returned. He burst into the first-floor apartment
and opened fire with a 9mm handgun as his estranged wife, two of their
children, and two friends watched television, authorities said yesterday.
Within moments, his daughter Felicia, 6, son Alejandro Jr., 22, and their
neighbor Aaron Faulk, 14, were dead, along with DeJesus, 49, who turned the gun
on himself. Faulk's brother, Michael, 16, was also shot and remained in
critical condition last night at Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland.
Camille DeJesus escaped unharmed. Police say DeJesus ignored her in the
shooting spree.
The killings were the second tragedy this year to strike Penncrest High School,
where Aaron Faulk was a freshman and Michael is a sophomore. Last month, five
girls, all Penncrest juniors, were killed in a car wreck that the Delaware
County medical examiner blamed on inhalant abuse.
Media Police Chief Marty Wusinich said yesterday that the shootings were
"frustrating and tragic for everyone," especially because Delaware County
authorities have stepped up efforts this year to prevent and prosecute domestic
violence.
District Attorney Patrick L. Meehan said yesterday that Alejandro DeJesus had
been unemployed for at least the last year and had been living in various
homeless shelters in the area. He had also been in and out of the Coatesville
Veterans Affairs Medical Center since 1997, according to the hospital.
His wife had alleged in court papers that he suffered from psychological
problems and drug and alcohol abuse. A hospital spokesman, Earl Johnson, said
that DeJesus, who served in the Navy from 1968 to 1972, had been treated for "a
wide range of medical problems" but declined to say what those were.
Johnson said that DeJesus recently had been receiving outpatient treatment and
that on his last visit on March 12, "nobody made any comment that there was
anything different."
The couple were married in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1975. But the marriage had
deteriorated in recent years, according to Mary Wachterhauser, an attorney who
represented Camille DeJesus in a custody hearing last year.
In records on file in Delaware County Court, his wife and son described
becoming increasingly afraid of him, beginning in 1996.
In May 1997, Camille and Alejandro Jr. each won protection-from-abuse orders
against Alejandro Sr. They alleged in court papers that he had threatened them;
slapped the son, who had cerebral palsy; and had thrown a plastic bottle at
Felicia, then 5.
Camille moved out with her children in 1996 after he tried to choke her,
according to those documents.
Last year, DeJesus sought partial custody of Felicia while residing at the
Coatesville VA Medical Center, court records show. His lawyer, Stephen J.
Mascherino, argued that Camille DeJesus had refused to allow him to see or
speak to his daughter except for "limited phone contact."
A court order issued Nov. 19 directed the couple to place their daughter into
counseling and said that DeJesus might then be allowed supervised visitation
once a week for two hours.
Camille DeJesus was seeking sole custody. Her lawyer, Wachterhauser, argued
that DeJesus had "severe psychological and anger-control problems and . . . a
history of severe drug and alcohol abuse."
Hospital records show he was in various veterans' facilities between September
and December of 1997. He was last admitted to Coatesville on Oct. 15, then
discharged four days later to a privately administered program on hospital
grounds, Johnson, the hospital spokesman, said.
An official with that program, who refused to give her name, said the facility
is a "transitional unit" for homeless veterans. She refused to say whether
DeJesus was living there as of Tuesday and declined further comment.
While her husband struggled, Camille DeJesus and her children moved on with
their lives.
She went to work as a secretary for a Media lawyer, John Churchman Smith, and
became friendly with many of the employees, Smith said.
Acquaintances said she was hopeful about the future but still fearful of her
husband.
Ken Carpenter, a Realtor who owns the apartment building at 303 Manchester
Ave., where Camille DeJesus moved to three years ago, said she told him "she
went through 20 years of abuse. She wasn't going through it any more. . . .
This was her first apartment on her own. She was a good-hearted person."
He remembered Felicia, a first grader at Media Elementary School, as an
inquisitive child who would come outside and ask him questions when he washed
his car.
"That's the part that really shocks me. That he would kill her. I can't imagine
it," he said.
The Faulk boys were living next door with their mother and an older brother, he
said. They often went to the DeJesus' apartment to play video games together,
he said.
A neighbor, Julia Atkinson, called the Faulk boys the "best kids walking. . . .
It's a hurting thing. I never expected anything like this to happen in Media."
On Saturday, when Carpenter spoke to Camille DeJesus, she told him that she had
received a telephone call from her estranged husband. "I told her to be
careful. I know she feared him. He wanted to see the child," he said.
But Carpenter said Camille seemed "happy."
"She said her divorce would be finalized and she was going to throw a party."
Then DeJesus burst through her door at 9:53 p.m. Tuesday.
Meehan said yesterday that DeJesus "flew into the apartment." He turned first
to his right and shot one of the Faulk boys. His wife tried to pull Felicia
away, but the girl ran to her brother instead. The district attorney said
DeJesus never aimed the gun at his wife, who fled out the door to a neighbor's
apartment and called 911. Meehan said Alejandro Jr. was shot in the back as he
tried to get away.
Meehan declined to say how DeJesus had obtained the gun.
Another DeJesus daughter, Candida, 20, was not at the apartment when the
shootings took place, Meehan said.
She and her mother are staying with relatives.
"Camille DeJesus and her entire family are devastated," said Wachterhauser in a
brief news release. "While she appreciates the outpouring of sympathy, she
wishes that the press and the media would be respectful of her privacy at this
time."
---------------------------------------------------------
The following appears courtesy of the 3/25/99 online edition of The
Philadelphia Daily News newspaper:
Grief hits school again
Shooting victims had Penncrest ties
by Nicole Weisensee
Daily News Staff Writer
3/25/99
As the rain poured yesterday afternoon, it seemed the skies wept for yet
another tragedy that struck Penncrest High School.
Once again, this tightly knit Middletown Township school became "Heartbreak
High" as students learned that another of their own was dead, a second was
clinging to life and a former student had also died -- the innocent victims of
a shooting rampage Tuesday night.
Coming on the heels of five juniors' perishing in a car accident in late
January and a beloved teacher dying of a heart attack last week, it was almost
too much for the students to bear.
"It's just one thing after another," said 18-year-old Joe DiAngelus, a senior
from Media, as he stared grimly off into the distance. "We all think this is
snowballing. This is the worst year Penncrest has ever had. Every year people
get in accidents but we've had 13 people die this school year."
Dr. Laird Warner, superintendent of the Rose Tree Media School District, echoed
his sentiments. "We've had more tragedy this year than I've seen in 30 years of
education," he said. "It's like being body punched, recovering from one, then
you get body punched again. There's just no way you can make sense of it."
Some students gathered yesterday in a hallway, writing their farewells on white
poster paper mounted along the walls of the school. Others walked listlessly
around with their friends, struggling to make sense of it all.
Still others collapsed in grief and had to be taken home by their parents.
And then there were the ones who twisted their sadness into anger and lashed
out at the media gathered outside to document their pain. "Get the hell out of
here!" one boy yelled.
The latest tragedy began about 10 p.m. Tuesday when Alejandro DeJesus Sr., 49,
burst into his soon-to-be ex-wife's apartment on Manchester Avenue in Media and
opened fire on everyone in the living room with his 9 mm, said Delaware County
District Attorney Patrick Meehan.
After DeJesus turned his gun on his son, 22-year-old Alejandro Jr., Camille
DeJesus tried to grab her 6-year-old daughter, Felicia, and flee.
But the little girl ran toward her injured brother so Camille slipped out of
the tiny apartment and called police.
By the time they arrived, it was too late. DeJesus, emptying his 15-round 9 mm
pistol, killed his son and daughter, and their upstairs neighbor, Aaron Faulk,
14, critically wounded Faulk's brother, Michael, 16, and then killed himself.
Michael Faulk was clinging to life at Crozer-Chester Medical Center.
Meehan said he thought the shooting was motivated by Camille DeJesus' filing
divorce papers in February and winning sole custody of Felicia last November.
Alejandro DeJesus Sr., who was unemployed and homeless, had been released from
a local Veterans Administration hospital within the last week, Meehan said. He
did not know what he was being treated for.
But court papers revealed that DeJesus had a history of drug and alcohol abuse
and mental instability.
He had also abused Camille repeatedly during their 20-odd years of marriage,
which prompted her to leave him in early 1996, court documents show.
Four months later, she filed a protection-from-abuse order against him after he
beat up their son Alejandro Jr., who had cerebral palsy.
Kenneth Carpenter, the owner of the apartment building where Camille and the
Faulks lived, said he saw her Saturday and she told him her divorce would be
final in two or three weeks.
"She was so happy," he said. "She said she was going to throw a party when it
was final."
She also said her estranged husband had called and said he was coming over to
see their daughter, so she sent her to her brother's for the day.
But he showed up Monday night, demanding money and custody, Meehan said. She
sent him away but called the Media police, who showed up a short while later.
On Tuesday night, just an hour before the bloodbath, the cops showed up to tell
her they found his bag at a nearby trolley stop, Meehan said. They left after
she told them he hadn't been back.
While Camille huddled with relatives last night and issued a statement begging
for privacy to mourn her losses, students at Penncrest mounted a silent vigil
for their lost friends. The school stayed open until 9 p.m. and had grief
counselors available.
Today they will try to begin -- once again -- the healing process.
They realize it won't be easy.
And somewhere inside they wonder if their school is jinxed.
"A lot of kids from other schools are saying things like 'If you want to die,
go to Penncrest," said one girl, who did not want her name used.
"It's like we have a black cloud over us," said another girl.
"It's like this school is cursed," offered a third female student.
Staff writer Don Russell contributed to this report.
---------------------------------------------------------------
The following appears courtesy of the 3/26/99 online edition of The
Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper:
Killer bought gun via `instant check'
A new law replaced the waiting-period method. Alejandro DeJesus shot his
children and two others.
By Mary Anne Janco
and Anne Barnard
INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS
Alejandro DeJesus walked into the Downingtown Farmers Market on Saturday and
plunked down about $430. Within minutes, the 49-year-old homeless man walked
out with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun.
Three days later, he burst into his estranged wife's apartment in Media and
gunned down his 6-year-old daughter, Felicia; his son, Alejandro Jr., 22; and a
14-year-old neighbor, Aaron Faulk. He also shot Michael Faulk, 16, who is
hospitalized in critical condition. DeJesus then killed himself.
"The gun was legitimately purchased in accordance with the laws of
Pennsylvania," Delaware County District Attorney Patrick L. Meehan said
yesterday.
DeJesus had no criminal record, was not the subject of an active protection
from abuse order, and had not been adjudicated mentally ill. Any of those would
have disqualified him from buying the gun under the new computerized instant
check system that all potential gun buyers in the state must pass.
But had DeJesus tried to buy the gun before July, he would have left the
Farmer's Market empty-handed on that day.
Until then, gun-buyers had to wait five days while authorities checked their
backgrounds. That requirement was replaced with the state's "instant" check
system, which takes a few minutes to scrutinize a buyer's background.
Eliminating the five-day waiting period was opposed by gun-control advocates,
including President Clinton, who argued that the "cooling-off period will help
prevent rash acts of violence."
State police say the new "instant" check system is more comprehensive. But
Mayor Bob McMahon of Media, where residents are still in shock from the
domestic shootings, complained yesterday that the instant check system does not
go far enough.
"I definitely do not think a person needs to purchase a handgun in one day,"
McMahon said. "If you purchase it based on emotions or out of frustration,
which may have been the case here, I think having to wait could change some
people's minds."
He said the current system does raise red flags, "but not enough. It's just too
easy to purchase a gun."
In the DeJesus case, one problem was that the "instant" check only flags active
protection orders. Though Camille DeJesus had obtained such an order in May
1997 against her estranged husband, it expired in May and was not picked up by
the "instant" check.
The current system searches state and national databases to determine whether
the purchase should be allowed, said Jack Lewis, a spokesman for the state
police.
Under the five-day waiting period, the background check was done through the
sheriff's office, Lewis said. The National Crime Information Center would be
tapped, and the sheriff's office might check with the local police, he said.
Lewis said the instant check "is certainly more complete. It does more checks
and there are more reasons to be disqualified."
Still, McMahon said, DeJesus "was a threat to his family. They had no way of
picking it up with the instant check."
He said the system should require contacting the local police department.
Officials have expressed frustration that the shootings happened despite
efforts by Camille DeJesus and local police. Camille DeJesus had received
protection-from-abuse orders from Delaware County Court to keep her husband
away from her and her children. And Media police had checked on the family less
than an hour before the shooting, because Alejandro DeJesus had been to the
family's house the previous night.
"The saddest thing about this case is that everyone did what they should have
done, and it still happened," said Tom Byrne, a Ridley Park police officer who
has spent the last year working on a county project to prosecute domestic
violence more aggressively.
In recent weeks, the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence has
discussed supporting a change to extend the period of protection from abuse
orders from one year to up to three years, said Dawn Henry, legal advocacy
coordinator.
"We've found the violence and abuse may not end within a year. Sometimes it
continues as long as the batterer wants to keep going. It would provide
protection for domestic abuse victims and their children for a longer period of
time," she said.
The Farmers Market Gun Shop, where DeJesus bought the gun, has been a tenant
for several years at the Downingtown Farmers Market in East Caln, Chester
County.
A man who answered the phone at the gun shop, who identified himself only as
Ed, said the store never comments on gun purchases.
A viewing for Felicia and Alejandro DeJesus Jr. will be from 6 to 9 tonight at
the Rigby, Harting & Hagan Funeral Home, 15 E. Fourth St., Media. A Funeral
Mass will be said at 10 a.m. tomorrow at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Catholic Church, Franklin and Monroe Streets, Media, followed by burial at
Calvary Cemetery in Media.
Donations to a memorial fund may be sent to the Alejandro and Felicia DeJesus
Memorial Fund, c/o Prime Bank, 101 W. Baltimore Ave., Media, Pa. 19063,
Attention: Pete Bendistis, vice president, ABA No. 031902096.
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