062110 Ngolo Murder Neighbors

Murder: Son says mother ‘died protecting a kid’

KRISTEN MULLEN / THE CITIZENS’ VOICE

Luzerne County District Attorney Jackie Musto Carroll, right, speaks about homicide charges against Harun Ngolo during a press conference at Wilkes-Barre Police Headquarters as city Detective Brent Sevison, left, and Assistant District Attorney Mike Vough look on. detectives he and wife argued over plans for Father’s Day. She wanted to gamble at a casino, according to a police affidavit. For protection from his wife, he went downstairs and fetched the weapon, according to the affidavit. In the midst of the dispute, Moses couldn’t find the light switch and picked his way through the room, But he couldn’t retrieve Noah and left when he heard police

arriving downstairs. “I remember opening the door and I passed out,” Moses said. “I was still awake, but I couldn’t move.” Police cleared the first floor, raced up the stairs and found a door knob coated in blood, according to the affidavit. It was locked. They kicked down the door. Inside, police found Harun standing over Maria’s body. Next to her lay the spear. On

the bed, Noah wailed. In the door frame, a paramedic tapped Moses’ face to wake him. “Get the kids,” he told the paramedic. “Where are the kids?” ■ Moses battled Harun before in the family home, and Maria had hedged at leaving the man with whom she crossed an ocean. In 1994, the family escaped

war-torn Zaire, where refugees and violence spilled over the border from a raging Rwandan genocide. Two years later, they bought the quaint three-story house on Simpson Street between railroad tracks and Carey Avenue, according to property records. Yet Moses said his father drifted in and out of the lives of his wife and seven children. He suspected his father suffered from a mental disorder, a stint on medication and time in a shelter serving as evidence. Violence was a facet of life in the Ngolo home. Often, Moses intervened, stepping between his mother and his father’s blows, he said. At 15, Moses broke his father’s arm in an altercation. “He just wasn’t a respectful person,” Moses said. “After that, I wouldn’t speak to him.” Yet, Maria didn’t file for divorce or leave, telling Moses she would break it off after she retired from her job at Sears. “No one really understood until yesterday,” he said. “It was just screwed up.” ■ Moses didn’t wonder Saturday why his father had turned up again at the house and didn’t really care. “He was just sitting in the

living room,” Moses said. “I just shrugged it off thinking, ‘Whatever.’” Moses had wrapped up a busy day spent with his son and Noah, taking them to the park and on a shopping trip for new toys. Entering the house around 9:30 p.m., Moses told Maria he was putting his son to bed. “She was still up,” Moses said, “but she was about ready to go to sleep.” He handed Noah off to his g randmother and went upstairs, where he nestled in bed to watch “Cars,” his son’s favorite movie. What started the altercation he doesn’t know. “If I had known that, I’d have done something,” he said. Lying in his hospital bad, Moses turned his head to the windows with the blinds turned down. He sighed and picked at a bandage on his left hand. “She was a saint, and she died protecting a kid,” Moses said. “And I feel like it’s my fault. I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t do more.”

the hospital Sunday. Moses, still in the hospital Sunday evening, lost a kidney from his stab wounds. Maria lost her life. A family member wearing latex gloves scrubs the evidence of Saturday night’s murder off the front entryway of 28 Simpson St. with Clorox bleach and a rough sponge. The relative said the family didn’t wish to speak at the time. Karen Daughtry, a 41-yearold Social Security employee, has lived across the street from the Ngolos since November. The red and blue lights poured through her windows. “I have never heard any commotion out of the house,” Daughtry said Sunday afternoon. “Never.” She said she has only had limited interaction with her neighbors and that folks living

on the street generally keep to themselves. “You never really know what goes on in another person’s home,” Daughtry said. “My heart goes out to those kids.” Only a few doors down from the Ngolos, Ann Middleton, a 72-year-old substitute teacher, said that as recent as last week, she and Maria sat down to chat. “God forgive him is all I have to say,” Middleton said. Early last week, Middleton said, Harun and Maria were cutting the g rass together. He would begin mowing and then she would take a turn. She remembers Harun being taken away by police in the past, but that the husband and wife didn’t seem like they were having the same problems when he returned.

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FROM PREVIOUS PAGE A foot-wide crack opened, and Moses raised his left hand to hold it open. Harun swung his rod into the black abyss. Several blows landed, but he gashed his son’s hands. “That’s when he cut me,” said Moses, who spoke from his hospital bed. “I was swinging blind.” Unable to get inside, he ran down the stairs and called his brother, Felix Ngolo, 18, telling him come home. Now. Moses dialed 911, barely able to describe the brutal assault unfolding before running back up the steps. “Before I finished saying the address, I dropped the phone and ran back upstairs,” he said. “I kicked the door off the hinges.” ■ The blood pouring from Moses’ side felt like warm bath water washing over his body, he said. In the dark, he reached for Noah. Behind him, Harun tried to rack his son with the spear he’d retrieved from the basement before an argument with Maria. “He just started stabbing,” Moses said. “I looked down and there was blood spurting out. He had punctured my kidney.” After his arrest, Harun told

ANDREW STAUB and PATRICK SWEET, staff writers, contributed to this report. [email protected], 570-821-2110

For Ngolo family, a history of violence Neighbor thought couple no longer had trouble By Andrew Staub Staff Writer

By Patrick Sweet Staff Writer

WILKES-BARRE — In between the railroad tracks and Carey Avenue, a small block of Simpson Street in south Wilkes-Barre appears calm and unassuming. A mother pulls up in front of her home Sunday. Kids hop out of the car in bathing suits. The night before, though, the street buzzed with police and ambulances responding to a murder on this quiet street. At the scene, police found Maria Ngolo, 62; Maria’s son Moses Ngolo, 29; and her 3year-old grandson with wounds from a knife fastened to the end of a pole. In an upstairs bedroom police arrested Maria’s husband Harun Ngolo, 66. The child was released from

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ment in the 2007 case, Harun Ngolo eventually agreed to plead guilty to the prohibited offensive weapons charge. Former Luzerne County Judge Michael T. Conahan ordered Ngolo serve six months probation, court records indicate. Harun Ngolo also agreed to cease contact with his wife and son, a stipulation that faded over the years. As of Saturday, no protection from abuse order had been in effect for Harun Ngolo, Luzerne County District Attorney Jackie Musto Carroll said, and he and his wife had reconnected. But the family’s past turmoil resurfaced Saturday, an unhappy story told once before, and one Musto Carroll said her office will revisit during its investigation into Maria Ngolo’s death.

THE CITIZENS’ VOICE

Though years apart, the afternoon of Dec. 21, 2007, and the night of June 19, 2010, unfolded in similar violent fashion at 28 Simpson St., court records show. On both days, police say an angry Harun Ngolo armed himself with a makeshift spear — a steak knife attached to a 3-foot metal pole in 2007 and a knife fashioned to a long wooden pole Saturday — and terrorized his family in their Wilkes-Barre home. At about 4:30 p.m. Dec. 21, 2007, police converged on the Ngolos’ home after a report Ngolo had chased his wife, Maria Jeringa Ngolo, and two of their sons into an upstairs bedroom, threatening to kill them, police said. At the time, Maria Ngolo

had an active protection from abuse order against her husband, who police said attacked her with a hammer in March 2007. “You’re going to send me to jail?” Harun Ngolo said, court documents indicate. “I’m going to kill you!” A locked door — pockmarked with six or seven holes from Harun Ngolo’s spear — kept the man from his family, police said. On Saturday, no door separated Harun Ngolo from his wife. The 66-year-old man killed Maria Ngolo during a fight over Father’s Day plans, stabbed his son Moses Ngolo when he tried to intervene and slashed his 3-year-old grandson, police said. Originally charged with simple assault, prohibited offensive weapons and harass-