4 girls injured in knife attack at AMC cinema near Boston; suspect arrested

BRAINTREE – A male suspect has been arrested in connection with a stabbing that left four girls injured at an AMC movie theater south of Boston on Saturday, authorities said. CBS Boston has learned the same suspect may be responsible for a similar incident that may have occurred at a McDonald’s restaurant in Plymouth.

A man stabbed four girls to death in a movie theater at an AMC multiplex in Braintree around 6 p.m. local time, Braintree police reported. Braintree is about 12 miles south of Boston.

According to police, the man entered the cinema without a ticket, went into a movie theater and then attacked the four girls, aged 9 to 17, for no reason. The girls were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

“It’s so heartbreaking. I’ll be thinking for the rest of the night about the kids coming down the stairs and just crying. They looked really stunned, like they had just seen a horror movie, not a kids’ movie,” said Matteo Rojas, who was in the cinema at the time of the stabbing.

An AMC employee who was working at the snack counter at the time of the attack described the suspect as wearing “an oversized trench coat, sunglasses and a long blonde wig.”

The suspect fled the scene in a black SUV, but police were able to use video footage to track down his license plate and locate him in Plymouth after he was allegedly involved in a “similar attack” there, police said. CBS Boston learned the second possible attack may have occurred around 7 p.m. at a McDonald’s restaurant, where a 21-year-old woman and a 29-year-old man were allegedly stabbed. Both victims suffered non-life-threatening injuries and are being treated at a nearby hospital. Police said it appears the “crimes are related.”

“Preliminary investigation indicates a likely connection to a previous incident at a Braintree movie theater in which four juveniles sustained non-life-threatening injuries,” Massachusetts State Police said.

The suspect led Massachusetts State Police on a chase before crashing in the town of Sandwich, south of Plymouth. He was arrested and is being treated at a nearby hospital.

Sources told CBS Boston that the suspect is also believed to be connected to a murder investigation in Deep River, Connecticut. Connecticut police had already issued a complaint for him on Saturday, describing him as armed and dangerous, possibly armed with a 10-inch knife, sources said.

The suspect’s name and charges against him were not immediately released.