A suspect was charged with murder on Thursday and accused of going on a stabbing rampage in a residential neighborhood in Northern Illinois the day before, killing four people and wounding seven, the authorities said.
The suspect, Christian Soto, 22, has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder, seven counts of attempted first-degree murder and two counts of home invasion in connection with the attacks in a residential neighborhood in Rockford, Ill., on Wednesday, the authorities said at a news conference.
“There may be more charges, and I think there probably will be more charges at the time that we present this to the grand jury,” J. Hanley, the Winnebago County state’s attorney, said at the news conference. Mr. Hanley said there could be federal charges because a postal worker was among those killed.
Mr. Soto told detectives that he had been friends with one of the people who were killed, and that he believed the friend had given him drugs that were “laced” with “an unknown psychotic,” Mr. Hanley said, adding that Mr. Soto “said he became paranoid after the drug usage.”
Mr. Soto was scheduled to appear in court on Thursday afternoon.
Three victims were killed at the scene, and a fourth died at a hospital, the authorities said on Wednesday.
Seven other people were injured on Wednesday and were taken to hospitals. As of Thursday, four out of five victims injured in the City of Rockford had been released, according to Carla Redd, the police chief in Rockford.
“We have one victim that is currently still in the hospital and listed in stable condition,” Chief Redd said.
The police noted that no one else was being sought in the attack. “We don’t believe there’s any other suspects that are on the run or at large at this particular time,” Chief Redd said at the news conference on Wednesday.
The victims who were killed include a 15-year-old girl, a 63-year-old woman and two men, 49 and 22, the police said.
Sheriff Gary Caruana of Winnebago County said that among the injured victims was a woman who was running away from the suspect after an apparent home invasion. She and a person who had tried to help had stab wounds, the sheriff added.
The chief added that not all the victims had been stabbed, though she noted that no gunshots had been fired.
Four patients were taken to OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center in Rockford, a hospital spokesman confirmed.
Mayor Tom McNamara of Rockford said at the news conference on Wednesday that the episode had shaken the community, which was already reeling from the fatal stabbing of an 18-year-old employee inside a Walmart on Sunday. A man was charged with murder in that killing.
Just last month, the police celebrated a report showing that violent crimes dropped by 19 percent in the city last year, though homicides were up from 2022.
On Wednesday, the police said that they had received calls for police and emergency assistance beginning about 1:15 p.m. The suspect was in custody by 1:35 p.m., the authorities said.
Photos from a crime scene showed police tape blocking off large portions of a street in the residential neighborhood, as fire and patrol vehicles arrived.
Vanessa Hy said that she and her husband were watching television in their living room when she heard police outside their home shouting commands at the suspect, who was in her backyard.
“After about a minute or two, I looked out the side window,” Ms. Hy said in a phone interview. “They had the man. He was full of blood.”
The suspect appeared to resist officers as they put him into a squad car in front of her home, Ms. Hy added. She said that it was hard to tell if the blood that covered him was his own.
Ms. Hy said she was relieved that her two children were away on spring break.
“It was almost like a rampage,” she said. “I can’t logically put any of it together.”
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