Inside deadly Levittown rampage: 911 calls, witnesses tell of unfolding chaos at homes

Editor’s note:  The following story is based on eyewitness testimony given in court, 911 calls made by Karen Gordon and Taylor Daniel as well as home surveillance and police body camera video taken on March 16, 2024 and played in Bucks County Court on May 15, 2024. Andre Gordon Jr. is charged and has not been convicted of any crimes in this case.

Andre Gordon Jr. knocked on the front door of his family’s home, then moved down the front walk as if he was leaving. However, he wasn’t going anywhere.

Seconds later his father answered the door. He told him to leave and called him a bomboclaat, Jamaican slang for toilet paper.

The confrontation captured on a home surveillance system lasted only moments before the younger Gordon suddenly charged at his 47-year-old father with a semi-automatic rifle.

“I’ll bust one in ya,” he told his father.

The older Gordon quickly slammed the door shut, but he did not have time to lock it before the first bullet entered the Levittown home, authorities said.

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What followed was a roughly 15-minute violent rampage that left three people dead, one injured, thrust two families into an unimaginable nightmare and two communities into chaos for nine hours.

A retelling of the March 16 events, including new disturbing details, unfolded over more than two hours Wednesday at the preliminary hearing for 26-year-old Gordon, who is accused of the first-degree murder of his stepmother, half-sister and the mother of his two children.

Gordon was held for trial on all charges in what the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office says will be a death penalty case.

Bucks County Detective Tim Fuhrmann compared Gordon Jr. to a hunter on a mission when he broke into his family’s Viewpoint Lane home shortly before 9 a.m., in what was the first of two deadly visits he allegedly made that day.

“It looked like he was methodically going through the house looking for victims,” the detective said.

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Karen and Kera Gordon’s desperate cries for help: “Emergency, gunshots, please hurry up.”

Gordon Jr. used the butt of the rifle to break the glass in the front door. He started shooting but the long-barrel rifle — which authorities said is an illegal DIY “ghost gun” — was only firing every other round, forcing him to rerack.

In addition to Gordon Sr., his wife, Karen, 52, his 13 and 14-year-old daughters and visiting adult cousin were inside the Cape Cod-style home hiding.

Gordon’s cousin hid in the tub of a downstairs bathroom. Gordon Sr. squeezed under the bed in the couple’s downstairs bedroom. Police found bullet holes, spent and unspent cartridges in the room.

The couple’s oldest daughter was upstairs in her room hiding in a closet under a pile of clothes. Gordon allegedly had kicked in her bedroom door looking for her. Police found blood smears on the door to Kera’s bedroom.

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Karen Gordon and their youngest child were holed up downstairs in an office.  At least six bullet holes were found in the door and shell casings outside it.

Police later learned the mother and daughter were pushing against the door in an attempt to keep out Gordon Jr. Police believe her stepson heard Karen Gordon on the phone with 911.

She was screaming that her stepson was trying to break into the house and he was shooting.

“Emergency. Gunshots. Please hurry up,” Karen Gordon said. “Please help us. It’s my stepson. Please, Please. I’ve got children in here.”

In the background was the voice of a terrified Kera Gordon yelling, “Please, please, please.”

Karen Gordon repeatedly gave her address as 45 Viewpoint Lane, but in the chaos the dispatcher misheard her and sent police to 25 Viewpoint Lane.

A Falls police cruiser was recorded on a neighbor’s home surveillance system driving past the Gordon home while authorities say Gordon Jr. was still inside.

On the 911 recording Karen Gordon was pleading for help when multiple shots were fired followed by screaming.

“My daughter is shot,” Karen screamed. “My daughter. My daughter.”

Loud banging noises were heard before the call ended with the woman's last recorded words:

“What are you doing?”

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Taylor Daniel was watching cartoons with her children. Then Andre Gordon showed up at the kitchen door.

Three miles away, in another Levittown home, it was a typical Saturday morning for the Danei family. John Daniel was asleep in his bedroom. His mom, Nancy Daniel, was in her bedroom, too.

Taylor Daniel and her two children were up but still in their pajamas in the living room watching cartoons.

Then her ex-boyfriend, Andre Gordon Jr., unexpectedly appeared at the kitchen door of the Edgewood Lane home.

Before the 911 dispatcher answered, Taylor is heard telling her kids to go to the bedroom they shared and lock the door. She yells to her mom that Gordon just broke open the door, and to lock her bedroom door.

“Mom, mom he has a gun.”

Taylor was relaying to the 911 dispatcher what was happening as she retreated into the bedroom where her children were hiding underneath Spiderman sheets.

“He’s got a gun and broke down the door. He’s opening the door. His name is Andre Gordon. He just broke down the door.”

What followed was a crash, yelling, screaming, more loud noises, followed by silence, then the voice of Daniel’s 5-year-old daughter.

“Mommy?”

Later the kindergartener told police that she saw her daddy enter the bedroom with a black gun and he went “pew-pew” with mommy.  She put her hand over her 3-year-old sister’s mouth when her dad was in the room.

“So we don’t get pewed,” she said, according to police.

The commotion woke John Daniel who ran into the bedroom, grabbed the girls and took them to his room. He kicked out a window screen preparing to escape with the children.

Nancy Daniel ran into the living room and retrieved an ax handle she kept for protection. She then attacked Gordon from behind while he was still in the girls’ bedroom.

She got two or three good wacks in before Gordon turned and struck her in the head with his rifle knocking her to the floor. He then struck her a half dozen more times in the head, face and arm while she was down.

“Then he just up and left,” Daniel testified Wednesday.

Nancy Daniel heard the 911 operator's voice on her daughter's phone. She told the dispatcher her daughter had been shot.

“Is she awake?”

“I think she's dead. Oh my God,” Nancy Daniel said. breathing heavy.

With the dispatcher’s help, Daniel performed CPR until police arrived and took over so she could go to the hospital to be treated for her injuries.

While waiting to be treated in the emergency room, Daniel saw TV news reports about the shooting. It’s how she learned Taylor was dead.

It was also how she found out about the first shooting, she said.

How police connected the Viewpoint Lane and Edgewood Lane shootings

Back on Viewpoint Lane, Falls police body camera video recorded a terrified teenage girl walking downstairs to a barrage of questions from officers in the early stage of piecing together what happened, and if it was related to a second shooting nearby.

In other body camera footage, police are seen questioning Andre Gordon Sr.

“Do you know anyone on Edgewood Lane?”

“My son," Gordon replied. "He has kids with a girl."

The second shooting would set off an hours long manhunt that would require communities in Lower Bucks County to shelter in place. Police would later learn the incident began in Trenton with an armed carjacking and that Gordon would flee Bucks in another stolen car after a second carjacking in Morrisville.

After several hours, and believing Gordon was holed up in a Trenton home, police would capture him and take him into custody.

He remains held without bail in county jail. He refused to leave his cell for the hearing Wednesday, but it went on without him.

Reporter Jo Ciavaglia can be reached at jciavaglia@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: How police say Andre Gordon Jr.'s violent Levittown murders unfolded