Nothing appeared out of the ordinary when he and his wife arrived home after spending the evening at a 76ers basketball game, the Bristol Township man said.
Until he saw his wife jump backwards and drop her purse in the living room.
Out of the kitchen emerged a stranger wearing a hoodie with the hood pulled over his head, gloves on his hands, and a black mask covering the lower half of his face. He pointed a handgun at them.
He wanted money. A lot of money, the 47-year-old man testified Tuesday at a preliminary hearing for two Bristol Township men — one described as a close family friend — charged with the Feb. 23 home invasion and extortion plot.
Money, the man says that he didn’t keep in the house.
“I told him, ‘I ain’t got no $10,000’ ” he testified. “I told him I had my money in the bank.”
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| Kalyn Walker (left) and Jimmy Wilson |
The homeowner was among four witnesses Tuesday who testified during the hearing for Kalyn Rahshun Walker, 22, of Fleetwing Drive, and Jimmy Lee Wilson, 29, of Bath Road. They are charged with robbery with immediate threat of injury, theft, extortion, terroristic threats, unlawful restraint and conspiracy.
Wilson, police say, wasn’t in the house during the invasion but did play a role in the crime.
Bristol Township police allege that Walker, the masked intruder, used a handgun to force his way into the Crabtree Drive home on Feb. 23, tied up the family, stole $56 and threatened to harm the man’s children if he didn’t produce $10,000 on Monday.
Police say the couple’s 17-year-old daughter was home alone when Walker knocked on the door and, once inside the home, ordered the teen to take him to her parents’ bedroom where he rummaged through a dresser, while asking the girl where her parents kept the safe.
On the witness stand Tuesday, the man said that when Walker confronted the couple in the living room he ordered them to empty their pockets; he then threw their cell phones onto the floor in an attempt to break them.
Next, Walker handed the wife and daughter rope and told them to tie each other up, then he led them to a bathroom, the man testified. He returned to the living room and demanded that the homeowner produce $10,000, he said.
After searching the bedroom for money, Walker told the homeowner that he had better find $10,000 by Monday afternoon or he’d kill his children, the man testified. He told the man he’d provide further instructions for where to drop the money.
Walker then allegedly ordered the man to remove his shoelaces and use them to tie his hands before leading him into the same bathroom with his wife and daughter. He told them to count to 30 before leaving the room, the man testified.
He added that, as promised, on the following Monday morning, he received a call from the gunman saying he was to put $10,000 cash into a black knapsack and leave it in a commercial trash bin by a hardware store off Route 413 and Ford Road. The first call was followed by more calls and text messages from the same number, including one upping the demand to $20,000, he told the court.
“Did you recognize the voice as the same individual in your house?” Bucks County prosecutor Mark Furber asked.
“Yes,” the man replied.
But under cross examination by Walker’s court-appointed attorney, Niels Ericksen, the man admitted that the only part of the gunman’s body that he could see were his eyes — though the man insisted he recognized them as Walker’s.
Ericksen also questioned how the man could recognize the gunman’s voice when he never heard it before and police didn’t have him compare his voice to others. The man’s response: He heard the voice when the man was in his home.
“I’d know that voice anywhere,” he added.
The man also acknowledged that he didn’t contact police until two days after the home invasion, but there was no testimony about why he waited. Police previously said the man failed to immediately report the crime out of fear.
Under cross examination by Wilson’s public defender, Ann Faust, the man said that Wilson was not the intruder. The prosecution described Wilson as a close friend of the homeowner’s family.
“You didn’t see my client on Monday either,” Faust said.
“No,” the man answered.
But police say that after they set up surveillance at the drop point and caught Walker when he retrieved the backpack filled with 100 $1 bills, he confessed to participating in the robbery and extortion plot and named Wilson as his co-conspirator.
Bristol Township patrolman Jarrod Eisenhauser, who interviewed Walker after he was taken into custody, said that Walker admitted to making calls about the ransom, but said that Wilson sent the text messages. The officer also testified that Walker alleges Wilson drove him to the home invasion and waited in a car outside.
Following testimony Tuesday, Bristol Township District Judge Robert Wagner Jr. held the men for trial on all charges. Each remains in Bucks County prison in lieu of 10 percent of $1 million bail.
Jo Ciavaglia: 215-949-4181; email: jciavaglia@phillyBurbs.com; Twitter: @jociavaglia
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