The suspect in a string of stabbings during a Hanukkah celebration at a rabbi's Monsey, New York, home was found with "blood all over him," a law enforcement source with direct knowledge of the case told CNN on Sunday.
Thomas Grafton was driving a Nissan Sentra across the George Washington Bridge into New York City when his car’s tag was captured by a license plate reader about 11:45 p.m. Saturday, authorities said.
Police apprehended Grafton without incident after midnight, a New York Police Department spokeswoman told CNN earlier Sunday.
Ramapo officers picked him up and transported him upstate, the spokeswoman said.
Monsey is a hamlet within Ramapo.
Grafton, who is from Greenwood Lake, about a 40-minute drive northwest of Monsey, is being held at police headquarters and will be arraigned Sunday on five counts of attempted murder and one count of first-degree burglary, Ramapo Police Chief Brad Weidel told reporters.
Five people were taken to hospitals near the rabbi’s home after the suspect entered the Hanukkah celebration in the New York suburb and began stabbing people, according to police and witnesses.
The victims were Hasidic Jews, the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council for the Hudson Valley Region said in a tweet.
Two people are in critical condition, council co-founder Yossi Gestetner told CNN.
One of the victims was the son of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg, at whose home the attack unfolded, and another victim suffered head wounds and is in serious conditions, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. The rabbi’s son is recovering, he said.
The attacker pulled out a knife that was “almost like a broomstick,” said Aron Kohn, who attended the Hanukkah celebration.
There were at least 100 people in the home at the time, as the rabbi was “lighting the candle” on the seventh night of Hanukkah, Kohn said.
The suspect tried to run into a nearby synagogue, but someone closed the doors, Kohn added. Rockland County — where the stabbing took place — has the largest Jewish population per capita of any US county, according to New York state.
About 90,000 residents, almost a third of the county’s population, are Jewish, Weidel said.
