Was killer stalking victim before murdersuicide?
RADNOR » The morning after two women were found shot in a murder-suicide in the Rosemont section of Radnor, a nearby resident said there was a woman using binoculars to watch the victim’s house two days before the shooting.
According to police, the witness only came forward several hours after Jennair Gerardot broke into Meredith Chapman’s home on April 23, waited for her to arrive and then shot her before turning the gun on herself. Although police can’t say for certain it was Gerardot who was looking at the house, the circumstances cannot be ignored.
Radnor Police Superintendent William Colarulo said he received the email message Tuesday morning. The murder took place Monday evening.
For Colarulo the email is an example that if someone see something in their neighborhood that seems strange or out of place, contact police.
“Its situations like this when we continually urge people to call 911 when they see any type of suspicious behavior or anything that seems out of the ordinary,” Colarulo said.
Colarulo said he didn’t want to identify the woman who sent the email but that she said she did not think too much of it on Saturday.
But if an unknown person is looking at a home with a pair of binoculars that should qualify as suspicious behavior, he said.
Colarulo said even if they had gone to the scene and the woman was gone, officers still could have reached out to the resident.
“The homeowner might have been able to tell us if they had any recent problems with anyone,” Colarulo said.
Colarulo acknowledged that maybe it wasn’t Gerardot who was looking at Chapman’s house but what are the chances that someone else would have been looking at the home two days before the crime. Police had also reported finding binoculars in the car Gerardot rented to drive from Wilmington to Radnor before committing the crime.