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Camden County Prosecutor Mary Eva Colalillo and Cherry Hill Police Chief William Monaghan reported a Willingboro man pled guilty on October 31 to charges related to a home invasion that occurred in Cherry Hill in February, 2012.
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Demetrius Murphy, 29, entered a guilty plea on to first-degree armed robbery and second-degree kidnapping in connection with the home invasion.
Murphy and two other assailants forcibly entered the victims’ home and held the elderly female victim captive for four hours while they ransacked the home and searched for cash and jewelry. When the victim’s elderly husband arrived home, he was also held captive and forced to surrender cash and jewelry from a safe. After restraining the two victims with zip-ties, the three robbers fled with nearly $500,000.00 in cash and jewelry.
Investigation revealed that the victims were targets of this home invasion because the family owned and operated a jewelry store in the Cherry Hill area. The identity of at least two of the robbers was discovered after the trio traveled to New York City where they sold thousands of dollars of the victims’ jewelry for pennies on the dollar.
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Murphy faces 11 years of imprisonment, with a minimum of nine years to be served before parole eligibility. He will begin to serve this sentence only after he as completed serving at least twelve and a half years of a fifteen-year sentence he received on an unrelated home invasion.
Murphy is scheduled to be sentenced on Monday, December 12, 2016 before Superior Court Judge Kathleen M. Delaney.