Four Girls Stabbed At AMC Theater In Massachusetts, Suspect Arrested – Update
UPDATE: Police have identified the suspected assailant as Jason Ravizza, 26, of Martha’s Vineyard, who is also suspected in a murder investigation in Connecticut.
A woman named Lisa Dembowski told WCVB 5 in Boston that her three daughters and their friend were the victims.
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The girls were there to see the movie “IF,” a film starring Ryan Reynolds.
“I got a call from my sister that my oldest daughter had called her (and) that I needed to get to the AMC movie theater right away because they had been stabbed,” Dembowski told the outlet. “Honestly, I just got in my car and headed right there.”
Her girls told her what happened in the theater.
“They were the only four people in this movie theater,” she said. “They had just sat down. They had just got their concessions.”
“I guess he came up behind them in the row — they were in the second row — and he came up behind them,” she continued. “My oldest was leaned over to get something. He got her in the back and then my other daughter in the top of the chest.
“Then, my last daughter across her arm — laughing the whole time — and then got their friend and then ran off.”
Ravizza fled the scene, and then proceeded to a McDonald’s rest stop.
Ravizza allegedly reached through the drive-thru window and stabbed a 29-year-old man with a knife, according to investigators who reviewed surveillance video from the fast-food joint.
Then he parked his black 2018 Porsche Macan, went inside and knifed a 21-year-old woman. The victims were also treated at a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.
Ravizza may also be linked to a murder investigation in Deep River, Connecticut.
Police found a body at the address on Saturday around 3:30 PM, .according to WCVB.
Connecticut State Police issued an alert earlier on Saturday for the suspect, describing him as “armed and dangerous” with a 10-inch knife, CBS Boston reported.
“A suspect in this investigation has been taken into custody in the state of Massachusetts, and there is no active threat to the public,” the State Police said in a news release.
EARLIER: A man has been arrested for allegedly stabbing four girls in an AMC movie theater south of Boston Saturday, authorities said.
Police said the man entered the Braintree multiplex around 6 PM without a ticket, went into a theater, and then unprovoked.attacked the girls, ages 9 to 17. The girls were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
CBS Boston reports that the same suspect may be responsible for a similar incident later at a McDonald’s restaurant in nearby Plymouth.
“It’s so heartbreaking that’s what I’ll be thinking about the rest of the night is seeing those kids coming down the steps and just crying. They looked really stunned like they just saw a horror movie, not a kid’s movie,” said Matteo Rojas to the Associated Press, who was at the theater at the time of the stabbing.
An AMC employee who was working the snack counter at the time of the attack described the suspect as wearing “an oversized trench coat, sunglasses, and a long blonde wig.”
The suspect fled the scene in a black SUV, but police were able to obtain his license plate number using video footage.
CBS Boston reports that the second possible attack may have occurred around 7 p.m. at a McDonald’s restaurant, where a 21-year-old woman and a 29-year-old male were allegedly stabbed. Both victims suffered non-life-threatening injuries and are being treated at a nearby hospital. Police said it appears the “crimes are related.”
“Preliminary investigation suggests a likely connection to an earlier incident at a movie theatre in Braintree resulting in non-life threatening injuries to four juveniles,” Massachusetts State Police said.
Massachusetts State Police were involved in a car chase with the suspect before he crashed in the town of Sandwich, which is located south of Plymouth. He was taken into custody and is being treated at a nearby hospital.
The suspect’s name and the charges he faces were not immediately released.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
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