Mother, daughter killed with axe inside New Jersey home, family says

ROSELLE, New Jersey -- A suspected killer is in custody in Maryland after a mother and daughter were found dead inside a home in Roselle, New Jersey on Wednesday.

The gruesome discovery, made at the home on West 7th Avenue, was believed to be the result of a domestic dispute, authorities said.

Atasha Scott, the sister-in-law of the woman who was murdered, told WABC-TV reporter Toni Yates that Keisha Morrison and her 9-year-old daughter were killed with an axe.

Scott says her brother Gary Morrison is loving and that he adored his wife Keisha, their daughter Kelsey and the rest of their older children -- a blended family.

She says giving was in his heart, which is why she says he did not hesitate to let his half-brother Everoy Morrison live in his basement for two years because he was down on his luck.

But the family says all that turned ugly when the couple's older daughters and their mother expressed concern.

"She said she wanted him out. He says he would leave before the end of the month," Scott said. "But he didn't, he didn't leave. He murdered them."

According to the family, Kelsey's older sisters called their father, Gary Morrison, Wednesday morning and said that when they woke up, they discovered blood on the walls of their little sister's bedroom.

They say the older sisters were afraid and hid in a room while their uncle was upstairs.

The father then came home, and after a brief conversation with his brother Everoy, Gary went upstairs and found a bloody axe under a mattress and his wife and daughter both dead and wrapped in sheets under a bed.

As police were arriving, the family says the uncle fled in his sister-in-law's car and made it down to Maryland where police confirmed that he was arrested.

WABC-TV is awaiting official confirmation from the Union County Prosecutor's Office on those details as well as any charges against Everoy Morrison.

Roselle schools were briefly locked down Wednesday, with students sheltering in place, out of concern of a possible crime, but the lockdown was lifted in the afternoon after there was deemed no threat to the public.

Neighbors said the victims were a loving family and they were always traveling and doing things together.

"It's heartbreaking. Who does that to a family, period, but to a baby girl who's defenseless? I'm in the military so it's hard to see this. I will never ever get used to having to face something like this," a neighbor named Rosie said.

Kelsey's birthday would have been Sunday and she would have been 10 years old.