{"id":172780,"date":"2018-07-24T01:31:21","date_gmt":"2018-07-24T05:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=172780"},"modified":"2018-07-24T03:13:07","modified_gmt":"2018-07-24T07:13:07","slug":"suspect-arrested-oakland-train-station-stabbing-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/07\/24\/suspect-arrested-oakland-train-station-stabbing-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"Suspect arrested in Oakland train station stabbing attack"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Surveillance video on the train and at the station’s platform showed Cowell had been riding the same car as the sisters, but they did not interact, Rojas said. (Pixabay photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OAKLAND, Calif. \u2014 A man who police say killed an 18-year-old woman in an unprovoked stabbing at an Oakland train station was arrested aboard a train about a dozen miles away Monday night, officials said.<\/span><\/p>\n

An anonymous tip from a rider on a Bay Area Rapid Transit train led to the arrest of John Cowell, 27, BART Police Chief Carlos Rojas said at a news conference.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cowell \u2014 a paroled felon \u2014 was arrested at another BART station in the San Francisco Bay Area. He had no weapon and was arrested peacefully, Rojas said.<\/span><\/p>\n

“This is the first step to achieving justice for Nia and her family,” Rojas said.<\/span><\/p>\n

A manhunt had been underway for Cowell since the Sunday night attack that killed 18-year-old Nia Wilson and wounded her sister on the platform at the MacArthur BART station.<\/span><\/p>\n

Asked how a wanted man could have gotten back into the BART system, Rojas said he didn’t immediately know but said the public transportation system is “porous” and large, serving four counties.<\/span><\/p>\n

Surveillance video on the train and at the station’s platform showed Cowell had been riding the same car as the sisters Sunday, but they did not interact, Rojas said.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the group got on the platform, Cowell attacked, the police chief said. “It looks like it was an unprovoked, unwarranted, vicious attack,” Rojas said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rojas didn’t provide any motive for what he called a “prison-style attack” in which Nia was stabbed twice in the neck.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rojas said Cowell hasn’t been connected with any white supremacist groups but added that “we are going to explore all options and all possibilities.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Nia and her sister, Letifah Wilson, 26, are black and Cowell is white.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cowell was released from state prison on May 6 after completing a sentence for second-degree robbery, said Vicky Waters, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cowell pulled a knife and a replica gun on a supermarket clerk who confronted him over stealing, court records show.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cowell also had prior arrests that include assault with a deadly weapon, the East Bay Times reported.<\/span><\/p>\n

Letifah Wilson said that she, Nia and a third sister had been returning from a family outing Sunday when they were “blindsided by a maniac.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“I looked back and he was wiping off his knife and stood at the stairs and just looked. From then on, I was caring for my sister,” Wilson told ABC7 News on Monday, speaking outside a family member’s home with a bandage on her neck.<\/span><\/p>\n

Surveillance footage showed a man police say is Cowell fleeing the station through a parking lot and stripping off his clothes there. Detectives recovered a knife they believed was used in the attack at a nearby construction site, Rojas said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wilson said a woman with a stroller gave her a baby blanket to apply pressure to her sister’s neck, but Nia Wilson died calling out her sister’s name for help.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wilson said she told her sister she loved her.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We’re gonna get through this, I got you, you’re my baby sister,” she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The women’s father, Ansar Muhammad, said one of his daughters called him, crying hysterically, and told him to get to the MacArthur station.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It’s nothing imaginable, seeing your child on the BART platform with a yellow tarp over her body,” Muhammad said Monday evening as he and other family members joined dozens of people for a vigil at the station. “That is an image I’ll never forget for the rest of my life. So I want justice. All I want is justice.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Nia was “the baby” among six children, said her eldest sister, Unieve Wilson, 37.<\/span><\/p>\n

She was “spunky, feisty, loved to dance,” she said. “She wouldn’t harm a fly.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Ebony Monroe, a cousin of the victims, said her cousin attended Oakland High School and loved her family, dancing and makeup.<\/span><\/p>\n

“She was a beautiful person inside and out, and she didn’t deserve it,” Monroe said.<\/span><\/p>\n

A man who witnessed the attack told them the suspect came out of nowhere, slit Nia’s throat and stabbed her sister as she tried to stop him, she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

“She died for no reason,” Monroe said. “We want to see justice.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The killing was the third possible homicide on the BART line in just five days, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.<\/span><\/p>\n

A homeless man at the Bay Fair Station in San Leandro died Sunday at a hospital, a day after he was punched by an attacker and fell down and hit his head on the pavement. He was identified as Don Stevens, 47.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another man, Gerald Bisbee, 51, died Friday at his Pittsburg, California, home.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bisbee was attacked by a man who was quickly arrested and suffered a bloody lip and a small cut to the back of his knee.<\/span><\/p>\n

An autopsy Sunday determined that Bisbee died because the cut became infected, Rojas told the Chronicle.<\/span><\/p>\n

The three deaths appear to be unrelated but they represent a worrying “anomaly,” the police chief said.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It’s rare that we have a homicide, so of course this is ramped up to the highest priority when you have three deaths,” Rojas said.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OAKLAND, Calif. \u2014 A man who police say killed an 18-year-old woman in an unprovoked stabbing at an Oakland train …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":172798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-172780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-lorin-eleni-gill-and-olga-r-rodriguez","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}