A Burlington County jury has found a Pennsylvania man guilty of storming into a Willingboro home and gunning down his child's mother and grandmother during a 2024 pre-dawn home invasion. Jurors convicted Junior Edwards in Superior Court on all major counts, holding him responsible for the upstairs killings that left a small child inside the house physically unharmed. The victims were identified as 33-year-old Catherine Nunez and her mother, 54-year-old Marisol Nunez.
According to NBC10 Philadelphia, the jury deliberated for about six hours over two days before finding the 39-year-old Edwards guilty of two counts of murder, along with home-invasion burglary while armed with a handgun, endangering the welfare of a child, and other related offenses. Prosecutors, as cited by the outlet, tied Edwards to a forced entry through a smashed first-floor window and to a handgun recovered outside the home.
In an earlier statement, the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office said investigators were called to the first block of Harrington Circle in the Hawthorne Park section just after 4 a.m. on Oct. 30, 2024, where they found both women shot to death in an upstairs bedroom, according to a BCPO press release. The county medical examiner determined that each victim died from multiple gunshot wounds, the office reported, and the prosecutor’s release also detailed the detectives and task-force partners who worked the case. Those BCPO materials formed the backbone of the charges that ultimately went before this jury.
Neighbors held vigils and the family has been in public mourning since the killings, earlier coverage noted. As reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer, the couple’s 8-year-old son was placed with the state Division of Child Protection and Permanency after the homicides, and Edwards was arrested days later in Pennsylvania on unrelated matters before New Jersey authorities served the homicide warrants.
What’s next for the case
Edwards is scheduled to be sentenced on May 22, 2026, prosecutors said. Under New Jersey law, a murder conviction is a first-degree offense that typically brings a prison term ranging from a 30-year parole-ineligible sentence up to life, and certain aggravating circumstances can expose a defendant to life without parole, according to the state statute. Legal filings and sentencing arguments are expected before the judge on that May date, and the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office or the court docket will provide any updates on pre-sentence submissions.
