{"id":443816,"date":"2025-12-13T05:06:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T05:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/443816\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T05:06:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T05:06:16","slug":"homeless-woman-accused-of-stabbing-tourist-inside-nyc-macys-bathroom-was-released-from-psych-hospital-morning-of-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/443816\/","title":{"rendered":"Homeless woman accused of stabbing tourist inside NYC Macy’s bathroom was released from psych hospital morning of attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

The unhinged homeless woman accused of\u00a0stabbing a tourist changing her baby at Macy\u2019s Herald Square<\/a>\u00a0was released from a psychiatric hospital hours before the attack \u2014 and bought the knife she used at the store after hearing \u201cvoices\u201d in her head telling her to \u201ckill,\u201d prosecutors revealed.<\/p>\n

Kerri Aherne, 43, had been let out of the Manhattan Psychiatric Center following a year of treatment when she strolled into the iconic Midtown store, purchased the blade and carried out the\u00a0savage attack against a 38-year-old California mother Thursday afternoon<\/a>, prosecutors said at her arraignment Friday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had purchased a knife at Macy\u2019s and looked for someone to kill because voices in her head told her that she had to kill someone or else she would be killed,\u201d Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Paul Barker told the court.<\/p>\n

Kerri Aherne was arrested and charged with attempted murder for the alleged attack at Macy\u2019s during the busy holiday season. James Keivom\/Pool\/ New York Post<\/p>\n

Aherne was wearing a ragged white sweater and a face mask when she was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on attempted murder, assault, child endangerment and weapons possession charges.<\/p>\n

Barker noted that while the alleged knife-wielding fiend had no priors in the Big Apple, she was arrested in her native Massachusetts in 2018 for making online posts threatening to kill Sen. Elizabeth Warren and \u201cgetting a gun\u201d to shoot someone at a \u201clocal police station.\u201d<\/p>\n

The troubled suspect first arrived in New York City via Uber from Massachusetts while on leave from a hospital there, he added.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear why she then began receiving treatment at a separate hospital in Manhattan.<\/p>\n

Aherne launched her vicious attack after seeing the victim enter the seventh-floor bathroom of the crowded flagship store with her 10-month-old daughter around 3:10 p.m., according to prosecutors and sources.<\/p>\n

The victim, who had been holiday shopping at Macy\u2019s with her husband and children, was repeatedly hacked in the back, shoulder, and arm with the knife.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the course of the assault, the baby fell from the table to the floor, but the mother was able to subdue the assailant,\u201d Barker added.<\/p>\n

Aherme was previously held at Manhattan Psychiatric Center following a year of treatment. James Keivom<\/p>\n

The slashed mom, who works as a civilian for the Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s Department, where her husband is a deputy, was rushed to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition, while her attacker was arrested.<\/p>\n

While the victim\u2019s back and arm were riddled with stab wounds, she was miraculously discharged from the hospital Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is better,\u201d her husband told The Post, declining to comment further.<\/p>\n

Court records show Aherne has long struggled with mental illness.<\/p>\n

The alleged knife-wielding maniac has no prior arrests in the Big Apple. Desheania Andrews for Ny Post<\/p>\n

The Tewksbury native was deemed an incapacitated person in 2019, with her mother and sister appointed as her guardians, records show.<\/p>\n

She was placed on a court-ordered treatment plan to keep her taking Prolixin, an antipsychotic medication used to treat schizophrenia, according to the records.<\/p>\n

She last posted on her Facebook \u2014 which features anti-Trump comments, movie clips and incoherent rants \u2014 in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing a little insane,\u201d one of her last posts prophetically states, along with a still from a Michael Jackson video.<\/p>\n

Aherne was arrested in 2018 in Massachusetts for making online posts threatening to kill Sen. Elizabeth Warren and \u201cgetting a gun\u201d to shoot someone at a \u201clocal police station.\u201d AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Aherne\u2019s attorney told the court he plans to seek bail at a future hearing.<\/p>\n

But when the judge said she would be held without bail until her next court appearance, the clearly confused suspect interrupted, pleading not to be sent to another mental health facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to go to another hospital,\u201d Aherne bemoaned to the court.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t help me at Manhattan Psychiatric Center.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is due back in court on Dec. 17.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The unhinged homeless woman accused of\u00a0stabbing a tourist changing her baby at Macy\u2019s Herald Square\u00a0was released from a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":443817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,7265,30572,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,8626,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-443816","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-homelessness","10":"tag-macys","11":"tag-metro","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkcity","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-stabbings","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-us-news","25":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115710524478350903","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}