An 80-year-old woman was stabbed multiple times in a southern New Jersey supermarket parking lot while she was loading groceries into her car late Sunday morning, WTXF-TV reported.
What are the details?
Mary Jacobs told the station she saw the “obviously scared” victim sitting on the ground in the Acme parking lot on West Nicholson Road in Audubon “with blood coming out of her side” as others rushed to her and tried applying pressure to her wounds.
“I don’t know why he would do this to me,” a tearful Jacobs recalled the victim saying, according to WTXF. “I just don’t know why.”
Image source: WTXF-TV video screenshot
Officials told the station the victim was in stable condition and recovering at Cooper University Hospital.
What happened to the suspect?
Police soon after arrested 40-year-old Altirik Higgins of Philadelphia, WTXF said, adding that he was charged with attempted murder and weapons offenses. Altirik was taken to the Camden County jail, according to the Camden County prosecutor’s office.
The motive for the stabbing is unclear, the station said.
‘Where are you safe?’
Acme shopper and Audubon native Amy Paratore told the station she’s “surprised that something like this happened in Audubon. I’ve lived here my whole life, and you usually feel safe coming to this store.”
Stephanie Moore added to WTXF that she shops at the Acme “all the time by myself, so now it’s got me a little leery … if somebody’s stabbing people … coming out of a grocery store, then where are you safe?”
Moore also told the station the stabbing is “very shocking because this area is not like that. It’s very quiet, very quaint.”
Another woman outside the supermarket told WTXF the stabbing makes her scared for her kids and the elderly in her family.
“It’s crazy that we can’t even go shopping, and our elderly can’t get their groceries,” she told the station. “The lady couldn’t come out of the grocery store without worrying about getting stabbed or hurt.”
* Article from: The Blaze
