LAKEWOOD, NJ – A Toms River man who killed two people inside a River Avenue apartment complex in December is going to stand trial for two counts of murder and other various charges.
The Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office announced that Nicholas Hardy, 36, of Toms River was indicted by a grand jury for the murders he is alleged to have committed on December 19th.
According to the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, “On December 19, 2021, at approximately 7:20 a.m., Officers from the Lakewood Township Police Department were summoned to an apartment complex on River Avenue for a report of shots having been fired.”
Police dispatchers were able to provide the Officers with a description of the suspect who fired the shots.
“The responding officers located an individual matching the description – later identified as Drummond – in front of the apartment complex,” Prosecutor Bradley Bilhimer said in a statement. “Officers ordered Drummond to lay on the ground; when Drummond refused to comply, he was subdued by way of a department-issued Conducted Energy Device (CED).”
“Upon entering the apartment building, Officers discovered the deceased bodies of Nicholas Hardy and Sergio Chavez-Perez; both men were observed to have been shot in the head,” according to a release by OCPO public information officer Bryan Huntenburg. “An investigation by the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crime Unit, Lakewood Township Police Department, and Ocean County Sheriff’s Office Crime Scene Investigation Unit, identified Drummond as the individual responsible for the victims’ deaths.”
Drummond has been lodged in the Ocean County Jail since his release from a local hospital on December 21, 2021.
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