A man in northern Illinois has been charged with murder following a stabbing attack that left four people dead which he told detectives happened after he became paranoid smoking marijuana given to him by one of the victims, authorities said.
Police said that Christian Soto, 22, has been charged with multiple counts of murder, intent to kill and home invasion after the stabbings on Wednesday in Rockford, 90 miles north-west of Chicago. The attacks also left seven people injured.
Rockford’s mayor, Tom McNamara, listed the victims as Romona Schupbach, 63, Jacob Schupbach, 23, Jay Larson, 49, and 15-year-old Jenna Newcomb.
Three people remained hospitalized on Thursday, officials said. The other four injured were treated and released, the Rockford police chief, Carla Redd, said.
Redd said Soto acted alone and that police did not know his motive for the attacks.
She said Soto and Jacob Schupbach had grown up together. Soto told police that the two were smoking marijuana at Schupbach’s home before the attack, the Winnebago county state’s attorney, J Hanley, said.
“Soto said that he believes that drugs provided to him by Jacob were laced with an unknown narcotic,” Hanley said. “Soto said he became paranoid after the drug usage. He said he retrieved a knife from the kitchen ... and proceeded to stab” his friend and his friend’s mother to death.
Court and jail records show Soto appeared in court briefly on Thursday afternoon and remains held without bond. He is next due in court on Tuesday when a judge will determine if he stays in jail pending trial.
Ruth Mendonça, inspector-in-charge of the Chicago office of the US Postal Inspection Service, told reporters that Larson, 49, had been a mail carrier in the area for 25 years.
Vanessa Hy, a Rockford resident, told WREX-TV of the chaos following the stabbing.
“All of the sudden, we heard police run up on both sides of the house screaming, ‘Stop! Get down!’” Hy told the TV station. “Then they ran into the backyard and after a few minutes we saw them bringing the suspect down the driveway in handcuffs and he was very bloody.”
Mayor McNamara said that the city was “shocked” by the attacks, which came days after a teenage employee of a Walmart in Rockford was stabbed and killed inside the store.
“We can report that the suspect is in custody and the threat has been neutralized,” the mayor said in a statement, according to CBS. “Now that he is in custody, our primary concern is ensuring that our community members directly impacted by this violence are supported throughout their healing and recovery.”
