7-year-old Emily Jones was riding a scooter at a park in Northwest England when she was almost “decapitated” by a thirty-year-old woman with a blade in a random stabbing attack.
The media and authorities initially concealed the identity of the perpetrator, who appeared to be a disturbed woman held under the Mental Health Act following the frenzied murder.
Emily was administered emergency treatment, but succumbed to her wounds shortly after the attack.
According to the Daily Mail, Eltiona Skana, “who is understood to originally be from Albania,” was arrested and detained under the Mental Health Act.
Skana has been accused of Jones’ murder as well as possession of a bladed article, and will appear in front of magistrates on May 26.
The murder occurred around 2.30 p.m. as officers were called to the scene at Queen’s Park, Bolton. The horrific crime took place merely hours before UK began imposing coronavirus lockdowns across the country.
Jones was pronounced dead a few minutes before 4pm. The coroner overseeing the investigation said:
‘Emily was on her scooter playing. As she rode past a wooden bench, a female sat on the bench suddenly attacked Emily, stabbing her in the neck, causing catastrophic injury,’ police coroner’s officer Rebecca Gardner told the court.
‘Emily was taken to Salford Royal Hospital, but despite best efforts to save Emily her death was diagnosed at 15.56 hours that day.’
Initial reports begun rumors of the perpetrators identity as being Somali following a misinformed Twitter post.
Following the incident and the authorities’ secretive response in releasing the attacker’s name had certain pockets of social media erupt over the killer’s identity–believed to be foreign.
The UK has recently struggled with Albanian gangs forming in the country, with activity ranging from drug dealing to robberies to human trafficking.
Albanians also form the largest demographic of the United Kingdom’s foreign prison population.
