Rita Loncharich, Florida woman stabbed to death in random attack at Palm Beach Gardens, Barnes & Noble store at Legacy Place shopping center by Antonio Moore, mentally ill homeless man.
A 65 year old woman browsing at a Florida Barnes & Noble store has died after she was fatally stabbed in an unprovoked attack by a mentally ill homeless man.
Rita Loncharich was reading a magazine at the bookstore in Palm Beach Gardens, Monday night, December 22, when she was stabbed in the back without warning by Antonio Moore, 40, who had arrived in Florida just days earlier, according to an affidavit, confessing to the crime.
‘He stabbed me!’ the married woman cried in an obvious state of shock, according to court documents.
Shocked 65 year old woman called husband to say she’d just been stabbed at Florida bookstore
Loncharich managed to call her husband, Stuart, and tell him she’d been momentarily stabbed, he told CBS 12.
Responding officers found her just before 8 p.m. ‘with a knife embedded in her back inside the store,’ the affidavit stated. Stuart’s wife was pronounced dead in a hospital an hour and a half later, just on 9:30 p.m.
The store’s surveillance cameras caught Moore running out of the Legacy Place shopping center, to nearby woods, where he was quickly arrested, WPTV reported.
Moore ‘willfully admitted to stabbing a woman in the back inside Barnes and Noble and running out of the store,’ the affidavit said — with the man saying he had ‘no prior interaction’ with or motive to kill her.
The assailant instead blamed a psychotic ‘internal build up’ that made him pick on ‘the closest person in the store,’ investigators said in the affidavit.
Unprovoked attack at Legacy Place shopping center
The homeless suspect, who arrived by bus from Georgia just a week earlier, was charged with premeditated first-degree murder. Moore was being held without bond and is due in court on Wednesday.
Police told the victim’s husband that the suspect has a history of mental illness and had been living in the woods.
‘We are deeply saddened by the tragic death of a customer following an incident on property,’ Legacy Place told WPTV.
It remained unclear what security measures the shopping center had in place and whether Moore had been observed loitering and or acting menacingly prior to the attack.
Posted Robyn Alexis-Knight: ‘Rita was taken in a way no one should ever be… stabbed in the back by a complete stranger, in a place where she should have been safe… inside a Barnes & Noble bookstore.
‘Rita was a kind, gentle, and loving wife and mother whose life was taken far too soon and in such a senseless act of violence.
‘Rita, I’m so sorry we failed you… your life mattered and you will be greatly missed.
‘Holding your family and loved ones close in thought and prayer. RIP Rita Loncharich
The random attack left Barnes & Noble customers terrified.
‘It’s terrible that anybody can’t walk into a regular store without being fearful of being stabbed,’ a customer who only gave the first name David told CBS 12.
‘For violence to occur somewhere like that, for someone to lose their life there, it’s shocking,’ said Rebekkah another shopper at the bookstore outlet.
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