Scarborough mother & daughter murdered in Atlantic City identified
Posted May 23, 2012 11:27 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
American officials released the identities of the Toronto mother and daughter murdered in a brutal daytime stabbing in Atlantic City earlier this week.
Po Lin Wan, 80, and Alice Mei See Leung, 47, both from Scarborough, were killed Monday morning in the tourist district of the New Jersey city.
Antoinette Pelzer, a 44-year-old mother of three, is facing murder charges in connection to their deaths. She appeared in court on Tuesday where bail was set at $1.5 million.
Police said the victims were stabbed multiple times with a 30-centimetre butcher knife. Wan was stabbed in the lower body while she was trying to help her daughter, who was stabbed in the upper body. Wan bled to death and Leung died of a puncture wound to the heart, the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office said Wednesday.
The attack happened around 10 a.m. Monday where many of the city’s casinos have their entrances and parking garages —on Pacific Avenue, across the street from Bally’s Atlantic City — officials said. The women were stabbed after Pelzer allegedly tried to take the older woman’s pocketbook.
A police officer patrolling in the area witnessed the stabbings and arrested Pelzer. The suspect’s aunt, Nadine King, said Pelzer has a history of mental illness and is schizophrenic. She’s also been homeless since January, King said.
Pelzer’s mother, Gladys Pelzer, told a Philadelphia television station that the stabbing happened while her daughter was trying to get money to buy cigarettes.
“I feel sorry about the people she hurt all because she wanted a cigarette. That’s what this was all about,” she told WPVI-TV.
Below is video of Pelzer’s court hearing on Tuesday from the Press of Atlantic City:
