TAUNTON, Mass., May 11 (UPI) — Two people were stabbed to death and two others injured after a knife-wielding man went on a rampage in Taunton, Mass., on Tuesday night.
Arthur DaRosa, 28, was eventually shot and killed at Silver City Galleria mall by an off-duty Plymouth County sheriff’s deputy, police said.
The violence began at around 7 p.m, four miles from the mall, when DaRosa crashed his car into a truck on Myricks Street in Taunton, about 40 miles south of Boston.
Witnesses said that he then began to run around the neighborhood erratically, trying to break into nearby homes.
He eventually forced his way into one property where he stabbed an 80-year-old woman and her daughter with a kitchen knife. Both were taken to Morton Hospital, where the older woman later died, and her daughter was being treated for life-threatening injuries.
Neighbors said they watched in horror as the man ran back out of the home, and fled the scene in a black car he stole.
“It was chaos,” eyewitness Doug Kinsman told Boston area WCVB5 News. “He was definitely not in the right state of mind.”
DaRosa then traveled to the mall and smashed his car into the entrance of a Macy’s store, where he got out and started attacking shoppers, Bristol District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn III said at a press conference.
From there he ran into a Bertucci’s restaurant.
“I saw him just start stabbing people,” said witness Emaly Higgings. “And there was someone with a chair trying to throw it at (the suspect).”
A 56-year-old man and a pregnant woman, who were injured in the attacks, were taken to Morton Hospital where the man later died. The woman’s condition is unknown.
An off-duty sheriff’s deputy, who happened to be in the restaurant, shot DaRosa dead with a single bullet.
None of the victims have been identified, but it’s not thought that any of them were known by the suspect. Police are investigating the motives for the attacks.
