3 charged in Upper Darby home invasion

Jonelle Tomosky thought she was going to die.

Early yesterday morning, she said, a 16-year-old boy climbed into her parents' Drexel Hill home through the bay window and stood over her with a revolver in his hand. He told her to lie on her stomach.

Tomosky, 23, who is seven months pregnant, got on top of her 5-year-old daughter, hoping that her body would stop the bullet.

"I thought there was a good chance he was going to kill me," she said.

The teenage gunman, identified by Upper Darby police as Nasir Cameron, didn't pull the trigger. He just wanted the family's flat-screen TV and all the cash in the house, police said.

But Cameron and two alleged accomplices didn't get far. They were arrested following a foot pursuit after Tomosky used a cordless phone to call 9-1-1, and her sister ran to a neighbor's house for help while the home invasion was still under way.

Police said that Cameron was being charged as an adult with robbery, assault and related offenses, along with John Wade and Keith Morris, both 22. Police said they broke into the Marshall Road home about 3 a.m., armed with a sawed-off shotgun, a handgun and a knife.

All three are from Philadelphia.

"These guys are like pack rats running around in a maze, looking to see who they can rip off, who they can hurt," said Upper Darby police Superintendent Michael Chitwood Sr. "These guys are dangerous, violent individuals."

Morris has also been charged in Monday's home invasion on Kirks Lane, where he and three other men allegedly terrorized an 88-year-old man and 77-year-old woman and stole their BMW.

"Apparently, what these guys are doing is patrolling the areas," Chitwood said. "They're looking to see who's got lights on early in the morning; they're staking out the houses to see the movement inside."

Police believe that one or more of the men might be responsible for a series of home invasions in Delaware County and Northeast Philadelphia. Police were planning to search several Philadelphia locations late yesterday.

Tomosky couldn't believe how young Cameron was when, she said, he woke her up and demanded money.

"He looked like a baby, a little freakin' kid," she said. "It's pretty traumatizing. My 5-year-old was looking down the barrel of a gun."

"You never think it's going to happen to you," said Tomosky's fiance, John Blake, "until it does."