Mother stabbed while changing baby at NYC Macy’s; suspect arrested

A routine shopping trip turned into a nightmare inside one of New York City’s most famous department stores when a mother was brutally stabbed in a Macy’s baby changing room - with her 10-month-old daughter just feet away.

According to Fox News and the New York Post, the mother was tending to her daughter around 3pm on the store’s seventh floor when a woman burst into the cubicle and began stabbing her repeatedly. Prosecutors say the force of the attack sent the baby tumbling from the changing table onto the floor.

Emergency services rushed the injured mother to hospital with stab wounds to her back and deep cuts to her arm. Doctors later confirmed she was in a stable condition. Remarkably, the baby escaped without injury.

Police arrested Kerri Aherne, from Massachusetts, after the child’s father and Macy’s security guards intervened and restrained her at the scene.

Court proceedings on Friday revealed chilling details about the hours leading up to the attack. Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Paul Barker told the court that Aherne had been released earlier that day from the Manhattan Psychiatric Center, where she had spent a year.

“She had purchased a knife at Macy’s and looked for someone to kill because voices in her head told her that she had to kill someone or else she would be killed,” Barker said in court, according to Fox News.

Prosecutors allege Aherne bought the knife inside the store shortly before launching the attack.

She now faces charges including attempted murder, two counts of assault and criminal possession of a weapon.