12-Year-Old Boy Kills His Mother’s Assailant

This page-one story in today’s Washington Post describes the terrifying scene that confronted Cheryl Stamp and her 12-year-old son Monday night. When the boy heard his mother screaming in the kitchen of the boarding house where they live (in Prince George’s County, Maryland), he rushed in and found her being strangled by a fellow resident, whom she later described as her “best friend.” The boy, the paper reports, “grabbed a knife and swung, slashing 64-year-old Salomon Noubissie across the neck and opening an artery.”

“I knew I had to kill him so he would stop hurting my mother,” said the boy, whose name was not published. Law enforcement officials, the paper notes, have not yet announced whether they intend to press charges.

(The online version of the story appears alongside a brief video interview with Cheryl Stamp, who describes the harrowing incident in her own words. “We just want peace right now,” she says.)