Neighbors were shocked when they heard what happened inside the home in the 700 block of East Ontario Street in Philadelphia's Juniata Park section. Yesterday afternoon, a 16-year-old boy discovered his mother dead in the hallway on the second floor.
Chief Insp. Scott Small tells Action News, "It appears she has several stab wounds to the stomach, chest, the neck as well as the back. She also has defensive wounds on her hands," indicating she tried to fight off her attacker. A bloody knife was next to her body.
35-year-old Tawanda Nelson, a mother of two, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Neighbors told police they saw the victim alive just a couple hours before her body was discovered. They said she was a quiet woman known to all the neighbors. They were shocked when they found out she had been murdered.
When police arrived, neighbors assumed it was because the victim, who was disabled, had suffered from one of her frequent seizures and simply needed some assistance.
Police have not yet publicly named a suspect in this homicide investigation. If you can help police solve this case you are asked to call the homicide unit.