A Philadelphia judge on Thursday denied bail for a man accused of stabbing his wife and 1-year-old daughter in a fit of rage at their Philadelphia home last weekend.
Stephen Burton, 42, waived his extradition in Maryland after he was arrested there Sunday night. Police said he fled there after he stabbed his wife, Danecia Berrian, and the couple's 1-year-old daughter, Desiree, during a domestic argument very early that morning.
Burton was brought back to Philadelphia and appeared Thursday morning for an arraignment on charges including attempted murder, aggravated assault, possession of an instrument of crime, reckless endangerment and related offenses. He was held without bail and scheduled to appear for a status hearing Sept. 4.
The stabbing at the family's house at the corner of Dallas Street and Georgian Road in West Oak Lane left Berrian, 37, and little Desiree both in critical condition, police said. The mother suffered stab wounds all over her body, and the baby was stabbed in her chest. Police said Burton also attempted to stab the couple's 4-year-old son, but that the mother was able to intervene and stop him from being stabbed.
A neighbor who came to the aid of the victims in the immediate aftermath of the stabbing described the horrific scene she found inside the house where the violence erupted.
"I heard her screaming, screaming, so it woke me up out of my sleep to the point that I fell off the bed," Donletta Bolds said. "I went over there and I knocked on the door, and I see him through the window standing over her, slicing her up.
"I ran in the house to get my phone. As I was running out [of] the house with my phone, he ran in his car, sped off. I knocked on the door, asked her, 'Is everything OK?' She told me no, and I asked her did she need me to call the cops," Bolds recounted. "She said yes, she let me in, and when she let me in, she was leaning against the wall with her arm sliced up, and all I could do was find some paper towels to stop the bleeding."
Bolds said she was the one who called police to the house about 12:30 a.m. Sunday. She told NBC10 that prior to the stabbing, she heard the couple fighting, and that the fighting escalated so badly that she ran next door to see if everything was OK. She said after she witnessed part of the attack and ran home to get her phone, she saw Burton, dressed only his underwear, jump into a burgundy vehicle outside the house and take off.
Burton was caught about 8 p.m. Sunday night in Baltimore, driving on I-95.
A GoFundMe page to raise money for Danecia Berrian, a former roller derby star known as "Nina Knockout," and her family in the wake of the tragic attack has been set up by her friends.
