Falls community tries to recover, help murder victims' family after triple shooting
On that horrible morning, Arlene Flanagan was making breakfast in her kitchen before getting ready to attend the annual Bucks County St. Patrick’s Day parade along New Falls Road.
She heard strange noises outside her Viewpoint Lane home and went to her front door.
She saw her neighbor’s 26-year-old son run from the house carrying what looked like a paintball gun. He jumped into a car and sped off.
Soon everyone in the Vermillion Hills neighborhood, would learn what happened on March 16 inside the well-kept Levittown home with a Jamaican flag address plaque and the family who lived there.
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Andre Gordon Jr. is charged in the murders of his 52-year-old stepmother and 13-year-old sister, 25-year-old ex-girlfriend and a long list of other violent crimes in Pennsylvania and New Jersey related to his alleged terror spree.
The murders of Karen Murphy Gordon and Kera Gordon have shaken this Falls Township neighborhood to its core, said Flanagan, who has lived across the street from the family for 18 years.
A nextdoor neighbor organized a prayer vigil 10 days after the shooting which attracted 40 people, Flanagan said.
Flanagan, too, felt compelled to do something for Andre Gordon Sr., now mourning the loss of his wife and daughter and trying to piece together what happened, who she called the nicest man she had ever met.
She knew funerals for two people would be expensive. Then, there is the bill for cleaning and repairing the damage inside of the family's home.
The bullets left holes in walls and doors. Police investigators removed evidence including swaths of carpet. Days after the shooting a sheet of plywood covered the front door window where police allege the younger Gordon opened fire on his family with a semi-automatic rifle.
Flanagan stepped outside her comfort zone and started a Go-Fund-Me campaign to help Andre Gordon Sr. with his expenses. As of Friday it has raised $10,700.
“I’m only trying to ease their suffering,” Flanagan wrote in her online fundraising appeal. “It left the community in a state of shock.”
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What a neighbor told us about the Gordon family
Efforts to contact Andre Gordon Sr. at his home since the murders have been unsuccessful. No information has been publicly released about final arrangements for Karen and Kera Gordon.
Flanagan described the Gordons as a quiet family that kept to themselves, bothering no one.
Flanagan described the senior Gordon as a private person who worked as an electrician. In the summer, he had a side job as a DJ.
“A very, very busy man, but always happy,” Flanagan said.
Andre Gordon Sr. was never too busy to talk to neighbors, especially her husband, Flanagan added. They borrow tools from each other. If her husband was working outside, Gordon came over to help him.
“He is the best. My husband and him would talk for a long time,” Flanagan said. “If I couldn’t find him, he was talking to Andre.”
Karen Gordon, a U.S. Army veteran who served in the Gulf War, was a quiet person, but as nice as her husband, Flanagan said. She would come over to look at Flanagan’s gardens. Once she brought her a Jamaican cake.
But when it came to her Kera and her older sister, Karen Gordon was a classic helicopter mom, Flanagan said.
“Very protective mother. She guarded those kids.”
Flanagan did not know much about the accused killer, who she knew as “AJ.” He lived in Jamaica until he was a teenager when his father brought him to live with him, Karen and the girls.
His father wanted to get “AJ” away from the violence in his native country, Flanagan said.
“AJ” attended Pennsbury High School, where he graduated in 2016. In his senior year he started dating Taylor Daniel, the mother of his 3-and 5-year-old daughters. He shot and killed her after the shooting at his father's home.
Flanagan recalled watching the couple when they’d visit the Gordons with the girls.
“The neighborhood is not the same,” Flanagan added. “I don’t understand what makes someone snap like that.”
Reporter Jo Ciavaglia can be reached at jciavaglia@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Levittown shooting leaves neighbor shaken, helping Gordon family
