Five convicted of roles in home invasion

COURTHOUSE » Five people from Bucks and Montgomery counties have been convicted of participating in a violent home invasion robbery that terrorized four residents of a Lower Moreland home.

Xavier Jermaine Tucker, 18, Mathew Loy Cooper, 21, and Carmella Rose KlotzCooper, 20, all of whom resided together in the 3100 block of Knights Road, Bensalem, Bucks County, and Carmen Christine Giddings, 20, of the 200 block of West Moreland Road, Hatboro, and Daniel Damian Tucker, 23, of the 1000 block of Log College Drive, Warminster, were each convicted in Montgomery County Court of charges of robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery in connection with the 11:50 p.m. April 3, 2017, home invasion at a residence in the 300 block of County Line Road in Lower Moreland.

County Judge William R. Carpenter rendered the verdicts after nonjury trials at which the five defendants stipulated to certain facts contained in an affidavit of probable cause filed by Lower Moreland Detective Holly Halota. The judge deferred sentencing the five until a later date so that court officials can complete background investigative reports.

Each of the defendants potentially faces more than a decade in prison on the charges.

Xavier and Daniel Tucker, Cooper and KlotzCooper were remanded to the county jail without bail to await sentencing. Giddings was permitted to remain free on bail pending sentencing.

Cooper and Klotz-Cooper, who knew the victims and wore masks during the incident, are married and authorities alleged they had an argument with some of the victims earlier on the day of the home invasion.

“They admitted in statements to police that all five of them committed the robbery. They had agreed to go to that address with the intent to rob the occupants as well as shake them up and scare them,” said county Assistant District Attorney Laura Bradbury, who vowed to seek lengthy prison terms against the defendants.

“It was a crime of revenge for a minor fight earlier in the day by two of the defendants and the other three co-defendants, who did not know the family, were still willing to go along and put four innocent people in fear for their lives,” Bradbury added.

The home invaders stole prescription medications belonging to two of the victims and three bottles of alcohol from a cabinet in the dining room, authorities alleged.

“This is something that will be very hard for the family to forget. To have their home broken into, which is supposed to be a place of safety, affects people greatly,” Bradbury said.

The investigation began when Lower Moreland police were dispatched to the County Line Road home, in the Huntingdon Valley section of the township, for a report of a home invasion.

A male victim told detectives he was in his home office when five people illegally entered the house. Daniel Tucker held the man at gunpoint while the other suspects began searching the home for other occupants, according to the criminal complaint.

The gun held by Daniel Tucker later was determined to be a BB gun.

“The victim, when he was faced with the BB gun, it looked to him like a real firearm,” Bradbury alleged. “That put him in fear of being shot and seriously injured.”

A female victim told detectives she was asleep on a couch in the living room when she was suddenly awakened by a man, later determined to be Xavier Tucker, who grabbed her by the throat and pulled her off the couch and confiscated her walking cane.

Prosecutors alleged Xavier Tucker and Cooper then headed to the basement and punched a man who had been in the basement and pushed him, causing him to fall backward down the basement stairs. Cooper and Tucker then struck the male victim over the head with the metal cane. The victim sustained a large laceration on the side of his head and required treatment at a local hospital, according to a criminal complaint.

An 8-year-old girl told detectives she was sleeping in her bed when she was awakened by KlotzCooper striking her with an unknown object and then dragging her by the hair down a hallway to her father, who was still being held at gunpoint by Daniel Tucker, according to court papers. The girl told authorities she sat on her father’s lap until the ordeal was over.

The defendants admitted they wore blue latex gloves during the robbery. Multiple pairs of the gloves were found inside the vehicle the defendants used to travel to and from the victims’ home.

“Additional pairs of blue latex gloves were located along the route of escape utilized by the defendants after the robbery,” Bradbury alleged in court.

When police searched the Bensalem residence of some of the defendants, they found a black airsoft pellet gun that Daniel Tucker used during the robbery, prosecutors alleged.