Woman shot in home after 3 men break in

EAST BRUNSWICK — Police are investigating the circumstances behind a home invasion Saturday in which a township woman was shot by three men who reportedly broke into her house.

The 45-year-old woman was home alone in the kitchen of her townhouse on Park Knoll Drive when around 6 p.m. three men described only as black males entered by breaking a rear window.

The suspects demanded money from the woman, who told police she immediately tried to leave the residence. A struggle ensued, however, and in restraining the woman, one of the suspects reportedly tried to put duct tape over the woman’s mouth.

During the struggle, one of the suspects shot the woman in the abdomen. All three men then fled the scene.

The woman, whose identity was withheld by police, went to a neighbor’s house after the shooting and was then taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, New Brunswick. She was still hospitalized on Tuesday, police said, with nonlife-threatening injuries.

The suspects fled without taking any money, according to East Brunswick Police Lt. Geraldine Garrett.

No further information was released regarding the suspects, and it was not known why the suspects had chosen to break into this house. Police would only say that those issues were still being investigated.

Asked whether the suspects may have had some relationship with or knowledge of the victim, Garrett said that it is “something we’re looking into.”

The neighborhood where the shooting took place, located between Cranbury and Old Stage roads, is an otherwise “quiet, residential area,” Garrett said.