A man is in custody on multiple charges after six people, including four girls, the youngest of whom was nine, were stabbed in a spree of separate attacks over Memorial Day weekend.
The suspect, identified as 26-year-old Jared Ravizza, has been arrested in connection to the stabbing of two McDonald’s workers in Plymouth.
An hour earlier, a similar stabbing incident occurred after four young girls, aged between nine and 17, were attacked at a cinema in Braintree, with the suspect “laughing the whole time” he carried out the alleged stabbings, according to the mother of three of the victims.
While a suspect was not named for the Braintree case, local police have implied that the two crimes may be “related”.
Mr Ravizza was arrested and taken into custody at around 7.15pm on Saturday evening, announced Timothy J Cruz, Plymouth County district attorney, in a news release on Sunday.
The suspect is currently at South Shore Hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries. However, the district attorney did not detail how he came to be injured.
Mr Ravizza’s arrest comes after multiple stabbing incidents happened around the South Shore area, allegedly carried out by the suspect, the district attorney said. While investigations are ongoing, Braintree police have said that it “appears as though” the two separate crimes are “related”.
Mr Ravizza is currently facing multiple charges of assault with intent to murder, two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
At 7pm on Saturday, local police received several 911 calls over reports of the stabbing of two employees at a McDonald’s location in a rest area off Route 3 in Plymouth, with the suspect having already fled the scene.
When authorities arrived, medical personnel found a 21-year-old woman and a 28-year-old man, both suffering from a knife laceration.
After reviewing surveillance video from McDonald’s, investigators say that it appears to show Mr Ravizza allegedly reaching through the drive-thru window and allegedly stabbing the male victim with a large knife.
The video then goes on to show Mr Ravizza leaving the drive-thru in a 2018 black Porsche Macan, parking the car, and going inside the McDonald’s and allegedly stabbing the female victim before fleeing in his vehicle.
A witness at the McDonald’s took note of the Porsche’s number plate, which was determined by law enforcement to be registered to Mr Ravizza.
Massachusetts State Police also learned that a “Be On the Look Out for” (BOLO) had been issued for Mr Ravizza’s arrests for other incidents.
The Braintree Police Department also released a statement detailing that on the same day, at around 6pm, an hour before the McDonald’s attack, a man came into an AMC cinema in Braintree, approximately half an hour away from the McDonald’s.
He passed the ticket counter and entered one of the theaters without paying and “without saying anything and without any warning he suddenly attacked and stabbed four young females”, police wrote.
They added that the alleged attack appeared to be unprovoked, and the suspected ran out of the theater and left in what appeared to be a black SUV.
The four girls, aged nine to 17 years old, all sustained non-life-threatening injuries and were transported to hospital for treatment.
Lisa Dembowski, the mother of three of the girls, said that the girls arrived for the screening of the newly-released family-friendly film If and were the only people in the theater.
“They had just sat down; they had just got their concessions. I guess he came up behind them, they were in like the second row,” she told CBS News.
“He came up behind them. My oldest was leaned over to get something; he got her in the back – my other daughter in the chest. My last daughter across her arm,” Dembowski said. “Laughing the whole time. Then [stabbed] their friend and ran off. The two older girls chased him outside; then they realized what was going on.”
Police searched through the cinema’s surveillance video and captured his number plate, which was broadcast to other law enforcement.
“Shortly after the broadcast, a vehicle matching the description was reportedly involved in a similar assault in Plymouth,” the police department wrote. “The vehicle was pursued by Massachusetts State Police and ultimately crashed in Sandwich. The driver has been taken into custody. It appears as though the crimes are related.”
While Mr Ravizza gets ready to appear in Plymouth District Court on Tuesday for these charges, the investigation into the stabbings is active and ongoing by Massachusetts State Police.
