OAN’s Brooke Mallory
10:22 AM – Friday, June 7, 2024
On Wednesday, a Cleveland woman was charged with a slew of felonies, including murder and attempted murder in connection with the stabbing death of a 3-year-old boy outside a grocery store in northeastern Ohio.
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Cuyahoga County officials reported that Bionca Ellis, 32, is suspected of killing 3-year-old Julian Wood by stabbing him during an attack on the child and his 38-year-old mother on Monday outside of a Giant Eagle grocery store in the city of North Olmsted.
According to a news release from the department, North Olmsted police officers responded to 9-1-1 calls regarding the stabbing, which took place in the grocery store parking lot.
“All information gathered at this time indicates this is a random act of violence, and the defendant and the victims never met,” North Olmsted police spokesperson Matt Beck said.
According to Beck, Julian suffered two knife wounds, while his mother was wounded once in the shoulder. Officials stated that after paramedics transported Julian to a neighboring hospital, he later passed away after losing too much blood.
According to court papers accessed by USA TODAY, Ellis was indicted by a Cuyahoga County grand jury on charges of aggravated murder, endangering minors, tampering with evidence, aggravated theft, and two counts of felonious assault, in addition to the two counts of murder and attempted murder.
Currently, she is being held in jail on a $1 million bond.
Court documents filed on Thursday in Cuyahoga County do not include Ellis’s defense lawyer.
At around 3 p.m. on the day of the attack, Ellis stole two knives from a thrift shop next to the Giant Eagle grocery store, according to a news release from Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley. According to the prosecutor, Ellis then noticed Julian and his mother leaving the grocery store after stealing the knives.
Ellis followed the mother and son before running up and “stabbing the 3-year-old” who was inside the shopping cart, O’Malley said. The prosecutor further stated that Ellis also attacked Julian’s mother when she tried to remove him from the cart.
“This case is truly devastating,” O’Malley said in the release. “I want to express my heartfelt condolences to the Wood family during this difficult time. As a father, I could not begin to imagine this grief, but I can promise that we will do everything in our power to bring justice for Julian Wood and the Wood family.”
According to court records, Ellis recently failed to pay rent for three consecutive months, so real estate business K&D’s attorneys filed a case in Cleveland Housing Court in March asking for permission to evict her from the property.
A GoFundMe profile was created to help Julian’s mother pay for funeral expenses.
“We are sick to our stomachs writing this,” the fundraising page states. “Many of you have been following this horrendous story online and have been asking what happened and how something like this could happen in our own neighborhood.. honestly, we have no explanation as to how or why this happened… it was a random act of violence. There was no prior altercation; they did not know each other… This was a malicious, random act. She has devastated our family beyond words…she took something from us we can never get back.”
The police refrained from mentioning if they considered this tragic attack to be a racial hate crime.
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