A 33-year-old Philadelphia man killed a 35-year-old woman and injured her 14-year-old son in a horrific stabbing attack witnessed by six children early on Christmas morning, after an argument at a family party exploded into violence, police said.
The stabbings started just before 3:30 a.m. at a home and continued outside the house, according to police. The suspect had been drinking heavily before getting into some kind of argument with the woman and her son, Fox 29 reported.
Officers arrived at the scene to find the woman on the street suffering from multiple stab wounds to the abdomen, Philadelphia police said, adding that paramedics rushed her to a nearby hospital where doctors pronounced her dead.
The suspect, who had cuts on his hands, had been standing over the woman when police arrived, officers said. Crews first took him to the hospital and then to a police station where homicide detectives interviewed him, investigators added. Officers said the man apparently cut his own hands while stabbing the woman and the teenager.
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Officers found the 14-year-old boy inside the home with stab wounds to his thigh, according to the Philadelphia Police Department, which added that paramedics took him to the hospital in stable condition.
Police said six juveniles, between the ages of 8 and 16, witnessed the attack.
One child tried to hide a knife, which police described as a butcher knife with a 10-inch blade, in a bedroom on the second floor of the home in an attempt to keep the man from stabbing anyone else, officers said, adding that they confiscated that knife. Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small said the children identified the 33-year-old man as the stabbing suspect, WPVI-TV reported.
"[They] said the 33-year-old male stabbed the 35-year-old female inside the property, chased her outside and continued to stab her when she was outside," Small said, adding that the juveniles were taken to police headquarters to be interviewed. "We believe all of them witnessed the incident, or at least part of the incident."
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He added that the man and woman are or at one time were husband and wife, according to preliminary information, adding that the couple and the children all lived in the home and were believed to be related in some way.
Officers found broken glass and overturned and damaged furniture inside the home, "so there was clearly a violent struggle inside," Small added.
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Police did not immediately identify the suspect or victims.
Investigators were looking into whether surveillance cameras captured the attack, Small said.