Five die in Camden murder-suicide

Five people were killed today in a murder-suicide in the Parkside neighborhood of Camden, the latest killings in a city suffering from a dramatically escalating homicide rate.

A 54-year-old man killed three women and a man after an argument in a house in the 1400 block of Princess Avenue about 4:30 p.m. before shooting himself in the side of the head with the handgun, said Jason Laughlin, a spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

Two children, ages 7 and 10, were unharmed in the shooting and fled to a neighbor's house after the gunfire broke out.

Laughlin said the nature of the argument was unclear, and the relationship of the shooter and the victims was also unknown, but they were believed to be in the same family.

Police cordoned off the block of two-story rowhouses, where witnesses saw the bodies of two of the women being taken away on gurneys. They also saw police whisk the two children away in patrol cars.

"I saw them and just thought, 'Oh, my God,' " said Betania Madera, 49, from Paterson, N.J., who had been attending a Labor Day picnic nearby when squads of emergency vehicles arrived, sirens wailing. She and other witnesses heard no gunshots.

Laughlin said the two women, ages 33 and 81, and a 30-year-old man were pronounced dead at the scene. A 57-year-old woman and the shooter were taken to Cooper University Hospital and died there.

Among the neighbors who gathered behind the police barriers, the scene evoked the Aug. 4 slaying of Brandon Thompson, a 4-year-old who police say was caught in the cross fire of a street-corner gun battle between two young men.

But today's incident appeared to have been confined to the interior of a house in this once-prosperous section of Camden that derives its name from the parkland along the Cooper River.

The killings would push the homicide toll in this city of 78,000 people to 41, fast approaching last year's tally of 47 for the entire year. Camden's homicide rate is more than twice as high as Philadelphia's, which has recorded about 28 slayings per 100,000 residents.

Camden police deferred questions to the prosecutor's office. In July, John Scott Thomson became Camden's sixth police chief since the state took over the department in 2003.

A man who declined to be identified said one of the victims was his friend, a cabdriver and a native of the Dominican Republic.

"I came down here because I know him and his family," said the man. "It's crazy."