Overview
- Officers responding to a 911 call found a 12-year-old with multiple stab wounds and her 31-year-old mother stabbed and slashed inside an East 173rd Street apartment late Wednesday.
- The girl underwent surgery and remains in critical condition at Cohen Children's Medical Center, while her mother and two younger children are in stable condition at Jacobi Medical Center.
- Police identified the suspect as 28-year-old Joshua Burnside, the woman's husband and the 12-year-old's stepfather, and said the two younger children, ages 5 and 2, were unharmed.
- Burnside was taken into custody without incident, charged with assault, criminal possession of a weapon, and endangering the welfare of a child, and was sent for a psychiatric evaluation.
- Investigators are probing a motive; some graphic details reported by law-enforcement sources, including a claim involving a screw, have not been confirmed in official statements.