When asked what happened to his family, a 23-year-old Montgomery County man accused of stabbing his father, mother and twin brother to death answered: “Extermination,” according to court documents.
While District Attorney Risa Vetri-Ferman says there is no clear answer as to why Joseph McAndrew Jr. murdered his parents and brother with a samurai-style sword Saturday, she says there was clearly an aspect of mental illness to the massacre.
McAndrew told authorities that “attacker” did the “extermination,” say court documents. When asked who was exterminated, McAndrew said, “Person named brother, person named mother and person named father.”
In addition to the Samurai sword murder weapon, police recovered several knives from McAndrew.
The 23-year-old has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Joseph C. McAndrew, 70, Susan C. McAndrew, 64, and James McAndrew, 23. Joseph McAndrew Sr. was a retired teacher.
All three were killed by “multiple cuts and lacerations” in the family home on the 200 block of Holstein Road in the Gulph Mills section of Upper Merion, Pa. All three were discovered in the kitchen of their home Saturday night.
Police found Joseph McAndrew Jr. in the driveway with his shoes and pants "covered in blood,” according to an affidavit.
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The suspect is being held without bail.
