Suspect arrested after ‘screaming lady’ slaying

San Jose police have arrested a 37-year-old man suspected of stabbing a homeless woman to death with a samurai sword in San Jose Monday evening.

The homicide was the second to happen on Monday – and one of three violent attacks throughout the day.

Earlier that afternoon, 38-year-old Martin Chacon was shot dead in his white Chevrolet Impala. Police told The Merc the shooting was unrelated to the stabbing.

Then, shortly after 4 p.m., another man was struck by gunfire during a drive-by shooting on the 2300 block of Denair Avenue and received life-threatening wounds. Police have not updated the victim’s medical condition.

Police said the homicides were San Jose’s 25th and 26th this year.

Witnesses identified the woman, whose name has yet to be released, as “the screaming lady,” an apparently homeless regular who screamed while sitting in front of the Walgreens on San Carlos Street — precisely where she was brutally slain.

One witness told KGO-TV that around 6:30 p.m., the man got off the bus and came up to the victim:

“… and bam, bam, then slit her throat with a samurai sword.”

Police said the woman suffered from at least one stab wound and was pronounced dead when they arrived on the sidewalk of West Carlos Street. They have yet to determine a motive for the stabbing.

Police also said Special Operations Canine Unit personnel assisted in apprehending the suspect. Canine officers located the suspect in the 2000 block of Beatrice Court and took him into custody.

The suspect, whose name has also not been released, was booked into jail for suspicion of homicide.

Another witness, a Starbucks barista, believes the suspect may also be the same man who had a bizarre encounter with the victim earlier that morning.

She told KGO-TV that the man believed the woman tried to put a black voodoo curse on the man by simply staring at him through the store window:

“… he threw the table of the gentleman next to him, dropped his drink, dropped the next person’s drink, (and) flew out of the store screaming, ‘Nooo, don’t do that to me!’”