Upper Merion man charged with killing parents, twin brother

Montgomery County prosecutors have charged a 23-year-old man with fatally stabbing his father, mother, and twin brother.

Joseph McAndrew Jr. was arrested Saturday and charged with three counts of first-degree murder related to the deaths of Joseph C. McAndrew, 70; Susan C. McAndrew, 64; and James D. McAndrew, 23, in the family's Upper Merion home.

King of Prussia District Justice William I. Maruszczak said McAndrew did not speak at his arraignment Sunday morning. He was being held without bail.

Neighbors said police arrived late Saturday, and four police cars were at the house on Holstein Road when one neighbor arrived home at 1:30 a.m. Sunday. "It's traumatic and very shocking," said the man, 23, who said he had attended Upper Merion schools with the brothers.

Speaking of Joseph Jr., the neighbor said, "I played soccer with him growing up. I never thought that anything [like this] was possible." The man asked not to be identified. He said the family had lived in the house for more than 20 years.

According to a police affidavit, all three were killed by "multiple cuts and lacerations" in the house, where police found several knives and a "samurai-style sword," the Norristown Times Herald reported. The two-story, white-stucco home is on a narrow, two-lane road.

Upper Merion Township police and Montgomery County detectives referred calls to Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman.

Reached via e-mail, Ferman declined to comment, except to say that a news conference was scheduled for Monday morning. "The investigators are working," she wrote.

6ABC (WPVI-TV) reported that the family members were killed in the kitchen and that it appeared the victims fought for their lives.

Investigators told the station that McAndrew gave them an eerie account of what happened: "Attacker killed person named brother, person named mother, and person named father."

The affidavit said that police went to the home after receiving a report of domestic abuse about 7 p.m. Saturday. When they got there, they found Joseph McAndrew Jr. in the driveway, his shoes and pants "covered in blood." McAndrew allegedly used the word extermination when police questioned him about what had happened.

Police reportedly found his parents and brother in the kitchen.

The elder McAndrew was retired, and the twins' mother volunteered as a poll worker for the township, neighbors said. The two brothers played soccer in school and "they used to do a lot of skateboarding," a neighbor said.