Neighbors on edge after North Philadelphia stabbing hospitalized 5-year-old, mother
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A 5-year-old and her 37-year-old mother were stabbed inside a North Philadelphia home Monday night.
Now, they're fighting for their lives. The mother and her 5-year-old daughter remain in critical condition.
Neighbors said the victims just moved into that home a few months ago, and they say anyone who would do this to a 5-year-old is pure evil.
On a sunny spring afternoon, a group of mothers sat together in prayer outside Jackie's Garden Townhomes in North Philadelphia.
One woman didn't want to show her face on camera, but says she knew her 37-year-old neighbor and her 5-year-old very well.
"To do something like that, how could you hurt a baby like that? She was a good mother everywhere you go she had that baby with her," the woman said.
Police were visible Tuesday as neighbors are struggling to understand what led to the stabbing.
"We didn't hear anything," Wendy Jamison said. "It was crowded out here yesterday and nobody heard nothing."
Police said the stabbing happened just after 7:30 p.m. Monday when they found the mother and her 5-year-old daughter on the floor inside a home in the 1800 block of North 20th Street.
They were both stabbed multiple times in their chest and arms.
The little girl was rushed to St. Christopher's Hospital and her mom was taken to Temple University Hospital.
"Everybody wants to know who it is because he might come and do it again or try to do it again," Janice Code said.
"We want to know if the mother and daughter are going to make it," Jamison said.
Jamison has lived in North Philadelphia for 38 years. She says her family has experienced violence first-hand.
"My son got killed here and I know the feeling to be here and memories that bring back," Jamison said.
And now, she vows to help support this young mother and her daughter.
"Comfort if she needs to talk to somebody," Jamison said.