Suspect passes mom and child in Giant Eagle, then stabs them in parking lot, North Olmsted police say (video)

CLEVELAND, Ohio – A Cleveland woman walked past a 3-year-old boy and his mother Monday in the driveway of a giant eagle in North Olmsted, barely making eye contact.

The woman then followed the mother and child into the parking lot and began stabbing them with a knife she had picked up earlier at a thrift store, police said. The attack lasted less than five seconds.

Bionca Ellis, 32, is charged with aggravated murder for the stabbing death of Julian Wood and the attack on his mother, Margot Wood, 38, in what police say was a 'random act of violence' which shook the suburbs.

Judge Brian Hagan set Ellis' bond at $1 million in Rocky River Municipal Court Tuesday afternoon. Ellis didn't look at Hagan. She simply placed her head on a table in front of her. A Cuyahoga County grand jury is expected to review the case in the coming days.

On Monday, the mother and child went shopping at the grocery store at Dover Center and Lorain roads. Shortly after 3 p.m., officers responded to several 911 calls in the store's parking lot.

“There’s a lady with a knife stabbing someone in the Giant Eagle parking lot,” a woman told dispatchers. “She walks towards Lorain with a knife in her hand.”

Police said Ellis left the Volunteers of America thrift store with a kitchen knife and walked into Giant Eagle. Inside, police said, she spotted Wood and her son, who were sitting in a shopping cart.

Ellis then followed them to the parking lot and attacked them, police said. Margot Wood was stabbed once in the shoulder. Her son was stabbed in the face and back.

“There is a child; he bleeds everywhere. I don’t know what happened to him,” a Giant Eagle employee told dispatchers frantically. “They are giving him cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Is he breathing? I don't know.”

Officers said Ellis and the family were not related or had ever met before.

“They just bumped into each other. Miss Ellis turned around and followed her out the door,” Matt Beck, a North Olmsted police sergeant, said at a news conference Tuesday about the incident.

Beck said Margot Wood's injuries were not life-threatening.

“But she’s going to have emotional trauma for the rest of her life,” Beck said.

The boy's mother declined to comment when contacted by cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

Another 911 caller told police he saw Ellis stabbing the victims and walking east wearing a black shirt and black pants. Officers spotted Ellis walking toward Dover Center Road with the knife, police said. She was arrested without resistance.

She did not say anything to officers after her arrest, according to police body camera video.

The incident stunned the suburb of around 32,000 residents.

“I can’t understand what this family must be going through,” said Mayor Nicole Dailey Jones. “To lose their youngest child in such a violent and senseless way is absolutely heartbreaking. »

Julian was a preschool student in North Olmsted City Schools.

“We are devastated to learn of the event that took place at Giant Eagle here in our North Olmsted community,” the school district said in a statement. “We are currently working with the family privately.”

The attack took place outside the same Giant Eagle where, last summer, a 60-year-old Cleveland man fatally shot his 63-year-old ex-wife in a murder-suicide.