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Two suspects who coldly executed a man during a home invasion targeted the wrong house after receiving a mistaken tip, according to prosecutors.
Andrew Gaudio, 25, was gunned down in his Lower Merion home, outside of Philadelphia, in the early hours of December 8. His mother, Bernadette Gaudio, 41, was left paralyzed by the bullets rang out.
In recent days, police have arrested Kelvin Roberts, 42, and Charles Fulforth, 41, in connection to the violent incident. They were charged with first-degree murder, robbery, burglary, and related charges, said the Montgomery County District Attorney’s office.
However, prosecutors said the victims were incident and the suspects simply got their intended target wrong.
“The motive in this case was to steal guns, and they simply got the wrong house“, said Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele in a news conference Tuesday. “They went into the wrong house with bad intentions and shot an innocent 61-year-old woman as she lay in her bed, and they executed her 25-year-old son.”
Roberts and Fulforth had both been working at The Junkluggers, a junk removal business, when they received a tip-off about a “whole lot of guns” at a house in Bucks County – an address which bore a similar numbering to the victims’ on 9 Meredith Road.
Steele revealed that “someone within the [junk removal] business was feeding them information” when they entered the family home in Lower Merion Township around 2:20 a.m. and fired multiple shots at the mother and son.
The 25-year-old was found dead at the scene. His mother was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. As she recovered, she gave prosecutors a description of the suspects.
On December 10, detectives received crucial information from a source who told police that Roberts had been criminally involved with his Junkluggers boss, found to be Fulforth. A neighbor of Roberts and surveillance footage also identified the pair as being present at the victims’ address at the time of the attack.
When police got search warrants for the suspects’ cell phones, their locations were near the home.
A GoFundMe, organized by Bernadette’s best friend in light of the attack, has reached a total of $265,010. Friends wrote on the 61-year-old’s loss of her son: “A mother, who lost her husband 15 years ago [who] is now facing the loss of her youngest son and a life of possible paralysis.”
Both suspects are being held in jail.
The Independent contacted Junkluggers for comment.
