Atlantic County News: The Press of Atlantic City
Address:http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/atlantic/011502SLAYING_J15.html
Changed:5:42 AM on Tuesday, January 15, 2002
January 15, 2002
A.C. resident guns down 2 alleged home invaders
By BRIDGET MURPHY Staff Writer, (609) 272-7257, E-Mail

ATLANTIC CITY – One intruder was dead and one was clinging to life
Monday after a North Indiana Avenue resident warded off a home invasion
by firing his own weapon at two masked men who pushed their way into his
apartment armed with guns.

The incident happened around 2 a.m. at the back door of 5011/2 North
Indiana Ave., an apartment shared by Dennis Burleigh, 54, and his
girlfriend, Carol Kelly, authorities said.

Burleigh went to the back door with his handgun after becoming
suspicious when someone knocked and asked to come in, according to
authorities.

When Burleigh opened the door for a man he knew, the masked intruders,
identified as Raymond K. Cox and Massai Burgess, pushed their way in,
and Burleigh opened fire, authorities said.

No charges had been filed by Monday evening, and Atlantic County
Prosecutor Jeffrey S. Blitz said the investigation was continuing.

Cox was shot in the lower back, and Burgess was shot in the mouth.

The man who knocked on the door, whom authorities would not identify,
escaped
without injury.

Burleigh, the resident, suffered a gunshot wound to his left hand and
was treated and released from Atlantic City Medical Center, City
Division.

Authorities said police found Cox lying dead outside the back door with
a loaded sawed-off shotgun under him. Cox, 36, lived at 910A
Mediterranean Avenue and also used the name Rashid Abdullah.

Authorities said he was found wearing a bandana over his face, and a
second gun, a loaded 9mm semi-automatic handgun, was on the ground
within his reach.

Cox died from a single gunshot wound to lower part of his back,
according to an autopsy performed by Atlantic County Medical Examiner
Dr. Eliot Gross.

Authorities said Burgess, 26, of 201B N. New York Ave., who also goes by
the name “Sahid,” was in critical condition Monday evening at the ACMC,
City Division.

He fled from the scene in his car after he was shot and a friend later
took him to Shore Memorial Hospital in Somers Point, where authorities
found him and later transferred him to ACMC.

Blitz would not comment on what the intruders may have been looking for
inside the apartment. When asked if Burleigh’s gun was licensed, the
prosecutor said that by law individuals do not need permits to keep guns
inside their residences.

Robert Mason Sr., a retired postal worker and community activist who
lives on Hummock Avenue one house away from the back door of Burleigh’s
apartment, was sleeping when gunfire woke him up.

“I heard four shots,” he said Monday, standing near his front fence,
where police found a bloody face mask with a hole in it.

A trail of blood stretched from the back yard where the shooting
happened, which is located on Hummock Avenue, to almost a block away,
near the corner of Robinson Avenue.

Mason said he stayed inside his house until he saw and heard authorities
arrive at the scene.

Police Officers Andrea Perry and Paul Petigna arrived after Kelly,
Burleigh’s girlfriend, called 911, authorities said.

The North Indiana house is a two-story brick attached dwelling that’s
owned by city resident Jacqueline Sharpe. The dwelling where the
shooting occurred is a three-bedroom duplex. On the other side, at 501
N. Indiana Ave., there’s another apartment and a deli.

“I just feel bad that someone’s dead,” Sharpe said Monday, when reached
at her home. “I have no idea what went wrong.”

Hummock Avenue resident Sherry Beckam said drug activity has been a
problem near the deli in the past.

She peeped out her door at the police activity Monday morning, but
didn’t go outside.
“That’s scary,” she said about the slaying.

The crime occurred less than two months after a 15-year-old neighborhood
girl was abducted a half-block away at Hummock and Robinson avenues
after getting off a school bus.
She was taken out of the city by four male suspects who raped her before
dumping her back in the resort.

Monday’s incident happened just a short distance from the Atlantic City
Convention Center, where thousands of conventioneers later flooded into
the area for a refrigeration and heating expo that was billed as the
city’s largest convention since the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

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