ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — A woman arrested in the daytime stabbing deaths of two Canadian tourists has long suffered from mental illness, her aunt said Tuesday.
Antoinette Pelzer stabbed two Canadian women, ages 80 and 47, on Monday morning as they were walking in an area where most of the city's casinos have their entranceways and parking garages, authorities said. Witnesses told police that Pelzer, 44, had tried to steal a purse from one of the women and then stabbed them.
A police officer on patrol intervened when he spotted the attack, subduing Pelzer at gunpoint. The two women died at a hospital a half-block from the scene.
Pelzer had been living in an Ohio shelter until December, when her mother brought her back to Philadelphia, said Pelzer's aunt Nadine King, also of Philadelphia.
Pelzer has long suffered from schizophrenia and had been homeless since January, said King, who said she had seen her niece out "begging for money."
She did not know how long she had been in Atlantic City, which has long been a magnet for the homeless, some of whom are bused here by welfare agencies from other counties and cities.
King said her niece, a mother of three, did not have a criminal record. She blamed her mental illness for what happened.
Gladys Pelzer, the defendant's mother, told WPVI-TV in Philadelphia that the stabbings apparently occurred while her daughter was trying to get money to buy cigarettes.
"I feel sorry about the people she hurt all because she wanted a cigarette. That's what this was all about," she told the TV station.
Pelzer was being held at the Atlantic County Jail. She was due for an initial court appearance Tuesday afternoon.
She was initially arrested on charges including aggravated assault and robbery, but authorities planned to update charges based on the deaths of the stabbing victims.
Identification of the two women was being delayed pending notification of their relatives.
Both women suffered multiple stab wounds to the upper body, police said.
The killings marked the third and fourth homicides involving visitors to Atlantic City in the past two years. Exactly two years before the women were attacked, a casino patron from northern New Jersey was carjacked inside the Taj Mahal casino parking garage and later killed. In September, another casino patron, also from northern New Jersey, was carjacked from the same garage and later fatally shot.
Associated Press writer Andrew Duffelmeyer in Trenton contributed to this report.