A mentally ill woman believed to have schizophrenia stabbed a seven-year-old girl in the middle of the park in a random attack. The woman screamed “she tried to kill me” as she slashed the little girl’s throat. The horrific attack happened on Mother’s Day, a court heard this week.
30-year-old Eltiona Skana is accused of murdering Emily Jones with a craft knife as she played on her scooter at Queen’s Park in Bolton as her father, Mark Jones, and mother, Sarah Barnes, stood nearby, the Daily Mail reported.
Skana is originally from Albania but has been living in the UK since 2014. On the day of the attack, she purchased a pack of three knives from a shop in Bolton town centre. Just before the attack, witnesses reported a woman in the park looking ‘agitated’.
Michael Brady QC, prosecuting, told the court that young Emily was riding her scooter around the park as her mother was jogging.
“Emily’s path towards her mum took her past the defendant who, as Emily scooted by, grabbed her and in one movement slit her throat with the craft knife and then threw her to the ground. There had been no interaction between Emily and the defendant. The wound was unsurvivable and Emily died shortly after,” Brady told the court.
After the attack, Skana fled the scene and placed the knife in her backpack, where it was later recovered when she was arrested by police.
Witness Tony Canty was also in the park when he heard screaming and saw Skana ‘manhandling’ the young girl and pushing her to the ground. Canty and other witnesses chased Skana off and found that the young girl had been stabbed, then her parents realized what was happening.
After running, Skana fell down and Mr Canty was able to detain her until the police arrived.
Emily had suffered cardiac arrest and was airlifted to Salford Royal hospital, where she was pronounced dead shortly before 4 pm.
Mr Brady said that a witness noticed the attacker before the incident occurred and thought that something wasn’t quite right about her.
“His attention was drawn to her because he what he described as he agitated demeanour. He noticed that she had a vacant look on her face and did not appear with it and did not seem to fit into her surroundings,” Brady told the court.
After her arrest, Skana told a psychiatrist, ‘I know I’m a paranoid schizophrenic’ and she was detained under the Mental Health Act.
Skana was moved to the high-security hospital at Rampton where she told a psychiatrist, Dr Afghan, she had been ‘psychotic, hearing and seeing things’.
Skana said she was ‘perfectly normal’ before coming to the UK and claiming asylum in 2014.
Brady argued that Skana showed no remorse for the killing.
She reportedly once told a nurse at Rampton “It’s been three months, what do you want me to do cry all the time?’.
She later told the same nurse that the killing was ‘premeditated.’
“It was premediated, I waited in a park and picked my victim, I did what I did, then tried to run away, ” she said.
Skana pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
