A 60-year-old man fatally shot his sister on the front steps of a Pennsauken, New Jersey, home and then killed himself inside the house, setting off a roughly 90-minute barricade that drew a SWAT team and a robotic dog to a residential block in Camden County, authorities said. The shooting happened on the morning of Wednesday, September 16, 2026, on the 4400 block of Bethel Avenue.
Pennsauken police were sent to the house after someone reported gunfire and said a man with a handgun was inside, investigators said. Arriving officers found the victim, Janet Camacho, 59, of Pennsauken, wounded by gunfire on the front steps of the home. Doctors at Cooper University Hospital, where she was transported, declared her dead.
The gunman was her brother, Daniel Lopez, 60, according to the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office. Investigators later determined the case to be a murder-suicide.
Police Deployed a Robotic Dog
With a man believed to be armed somewhere inside, officers locked down the neighborhood. A police perimeter went up around the property, the Camden County Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team was called in, and officers escorted residents out of a neighboring home while the standoff played out.
SWAT officers eventually sent in a robotic dog, which entered the residence through the garage. It found Lopez dead inside from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at around 10:37 a.m. He was pronounced dead at 10:41 a.m., roughly an hour and a half after the first call to police. By early afternoon, the situation was over and there was no threat to the public.
For the people who live along Bethel Avenue, the morning arrived as a rolling wave of sirens. Todd Edwards, a local resident, said police cars streamed past for about 20 minutes, one after another, the sound of sirens building rather than fading. Other neighbors watched investigators in suits, SWAT officers and drones fill a block they described as quiet and friendly.
Doorbell Video Captured the Shooting
A doorbell camera belonging to the family of neighbor Michelle Jimenez recorded the shooting. The footage captured the gunshots and showed a man pacing outside the home afterward.
“I guess I was just processing it and when I saw the video all I could do was tear up,” Jimenez said.
Jimenez said a long friendship had linked her relatives to Lopez and his mother, and that Lopez had been a regular guest at family gatherings who baked for her and her siblings. She described him as a kind man who offered her family advice, and said she did not believe the news when she first heard it. Jimenez also said Lopez had recently been unhappy about the impending sale of the family home. Public records show the house was scheduled to be sold.
Investigators determined the incident to be a murder-suicide, although the motive remains under investigation.
Neighbors Describe a Quiet Block
By midday, the street had filled with the machinery of a homicide investigation. Investigators carried bags of evidence out of the house. Residents and friends collected on the sidewalk and in doorways, trading what little they knew, as the medical examiner removed the bodies of a brother and sister who had lived among them.
Neighbors called the scene unsettling to watch. “This is so rare. This doesn’t happen here,” said Ozzie Marrero, a Pennsauken resident. Another neighbor said the shooting was shocking because nothing like it happens in the area.
Jabril Smitherman of The Barbers Lounge said he was sorry that the families now have to live with what happened.
Officials said no additional information would be released at that time. As of September 17, the case remained an active investigation by the Pennsauken Police and the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office, and anyone with information has been asked to contact either agency.
Readers troubled by the subjects covered here, or who know someone who is, can reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or send a message to the Crisis Text Line at 741741. Anyone struggling with suicidal thoughts can dial the 24/7 hotline at 988.