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| Photo Credit: AP. |
A teen was fatally stabbed to death while four others were seriously injured during a marathon stabbing in a Wisconsin River.
The 17-year-old Minnesota teenager and other victims were injured while tubing down the Apple River, according to authorities.
The suspect, a 52-year-old from Price Lake, Minnesota and the victims were all on the Apple River when the attack happened Saturday afternoon, The Associated Press quoted St. Croix County Sheriff Scott Knudson as saying.
Knudson said investigators
were trying to determine the motive behind the fatal stabbings and whether the victims
and suspect knew each other.
The victims
along with the suspect were tubing with two different groups that included
about 20 people when the fatal stabbings took place.
“We don’t know yet who was connected to who, who knew each other or what precipitated it,” Knudson said, The Associated Press reported.
Wisconsin River stabbings suspect fled scene but was arrested
Knudson said
the suspect fled the scene but was later arrested after a witness identified
him at a spot where the tubers exit the river, Newsweek quoted a report by The
New York Times.
The knife
attack happened near the town of Somerset, Wisconsin, which is about 35 miles
(56 kilometers) east of Minneapolis, The Associated Press reported.
“Thank
goodness a witness had taken a photo of him,” Knudson told the Minneapolis Star
Tribune, according to The Associated Press. “Another witness located him at the
exit of the tubing area, where he was taken into custody.”
The teenager
who died at the spot was from Stillwater, Minnesota but two of the other
victims were flown to a hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota, and two others were
taken there by ambulance. According to the Sheriff, the condition of the four
surviving victims – a woman and three men in their 20s – ranged from serious to
critical, The Associated Press reported.
Knudson also
said tubing is a "main attraction" in the area where the stabbing
happened in Somerset, the western Wisconsin town near the Minnesota border,
according to the Times.
St. Croix
County jail records show a 52-year-old man was being held without bond on
suspicion of first degree homicide, four counts of aggravated battery and four
counts of mayhem, The Associated Press reported.