Man Shot After Stabbing Children With Pitchfork

A man broke into a home and fatally stabbed two children with a pitchfork Wednesday before being shot and killed by authorities, the Merced Sheriff’s Department said.

A 14-year-old girl frantically phoned 911 on Wednesday morning to report that a man had broken into her home and was stabbing people with a pitchfork.

Jessica Lynn Carpenter, who phoned for help from a neighbor’s house, and two sisters, one whom was bleeding from puncture wounds, escaped out back windows of the house, but two younger siblings were stabbed to death.

Ashley Danielle Carpenter, 9, and John William Carpenter, 8, were killed in their beds at their home on Vassar Avenue on the outskirts of the city.

Sheriff’s deputies entered the house through a front window and found a man coming at them with a pitchfork.

“He was pointing it at them and going right after them; he wouldn’t stop,” said Assistant Sheriff Henry Strength. “They were hollering at him to stop, but he wouldn’t stop. Finally they had to shoot him.”

The pitchfork killing apparently was random, and investigators were puzzled about the assailant’s identity and his motive.

“He came from nowhere,” Strength said. “Right now we have no motive; we have no reason why this thing even happened. There’s no connection between the suspect and the family.”

The Carpenters had recently moved into the house their father built, but the children were already a fixture in the neighborhood, known as polite and friendly as they buzzed up and down the street on all-terrain vehicles.

One of the sisters who escaped, Anna Marie Carpenter, 13, was hospitalized Wednesday night in satisfactory condition at Sutter Merced Medical Center with eight puncture wounds.