A man broke into a Pittsburgh family's home through a kitchen window in the middle of the night, climbed to the third floor, and stabbed a pediatric intensive care doctor to death while his wife and two young children were in the house. The suspect, found bleeding in a neighbor's garden, reportedly told police the doctor had invited him over. He had not.
What Happened on Linden Avenue
According to CBS News and NBC News, Allegheny County police responded to a home on Linden Avenue in Edgewood Borough just after midnight on Thursday to find Dr. Idris Evans, 46, and his wife with multiple stab wounds. Both were rushed to the hospital in critical condition. Evans later died.
Evans was the medical director of the Pediatric Critical Care Transport Team at UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and an assistant professor of critical care medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He saved children for a living. He was killed in his own bedroom while he slept.
Police say the suspect, 32-year-old Elijah Hemingway, entered the home through an open kitchen window, climbed to the third-floor bedroom, and began stabbing the couple as they lay in bed. Evans' wife told investigators she was woken up by a man attacking them with a kitchen knife, according to the criminal complaint obtained by NBC News.
The Attack, as His Wife Described It
Evans' wife described the attacker as "psychotic." She told police he was wearing only underwear and repeatedly made utterances about "being God," according to the criminal complaint. He also used other objects in the bedroom as weapons during the assault.
At some point during the attack, Evans apparently called the man by the name "Elijah" -- though police told reporters Thursday they're still working to determine whether the two men actually knew each other or whether the attacker had identified himself. His wife said she did not recognize the suspect herself.
She managed to yell for her children, ages 8 and 12, to get out of the house and run to a neighbor's. They made it out uninjured. She eventually ran to a neighbor's home herself to call 911, having been stabbed multiple times. The suspect also demanded her car keys during the attack. She gave them to him.
NBC News reports that when officers arrived, they found Evans on the bedroom floor with "multiple severe stab wounds and lacerations to his trunk." There was blood on the floor, blood on the walls. A large kitchen knife was recovered from the third-floor bathroom. The back door was found open. Blood on the handle.
They Found the Suspect in a Garden
Hemingway didn't get far. Police found him behind a neighboring home with cuts to his hands and took him to a nearby hospital for treatment. CBS News reports that KDKA's news crew watched him being loaded into an ambulance in handcuffs.
Neighbor Sandra Trappen told CBS News she had no idea why there were so many police surrounding her house until she learned the suspect had been hiding in her backyard. "He had found a way to conceal himself, but apparently he was injured and bleeding," she said. She called it "incredibly shocking."
Hemingway's account to police, according to the criminal complaint reported by NBC News, is that Evans had invited him to the residence hours earlier and let him in when he arrived by bike. No bike was found on the property. He also claimed Evans attacked him first with a knife. He had no visible injuries beyond the cuts to his hands.
A Suspect With a Court Date Next Week
Here's something that will make your jaw drop. CBS News reports that Hemingway was due back in court in less than a week on a separate burglary charge out of Pittsburgh. He had been released in that case on nonmonetary bond, meaning he owed nothing to walk free while that case was pending.
He now faces charges of criminal homicide, aggravated assault, burglary, criminal trespass, and possessing instruments of crime, according to NBC News. It was not immediately clear Thursday whether he had an attorney.
Allegheny County Assistant Superintendent Victor Joseph described what officers encountered inside the home as "a very violent scene." Bedroom furniture broken. Mirrors broken. "It was a very graphic scene," he said.
A Community and a Hospital in Shock
Edgewood is a small borough just east of Pittsburgh, the kind of place where people know their neighbors. Local police put out a statement Thursday acknowledging the community was shaken. "You may be sad, angry, anxious, distracted, or just having a hard time making sense of what happened," the department wrote, according to CBS News. They asked residents not to spread rumors, graphic details, or photographs.
UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh both released statements. "Dr. Evans was a dedicated caregiver and valued member of our hospital and university communities," the hospital said. "Our thoughts are with his family, loved ones, and colleagues during this difficult time."
A pediatric critical care transport physician. The person who coordinates getting critically ill children from one hospital to another, who keeps them alive in transit. That's who died Thursday morning on the third floor of a house in Edgewood while his kids ran barefoot to a neighbor's door in the middle of the night.
The Dingo Take
A man released on bond for burglary broke into a doctor's home, climbed to his bedroom, and stabbed him to death while his children were down the hall. There is no complicated political angle here, no spin required. This is just an unbearable tragedy, and the family at the center of it deserves some privacy while they try to survive what just happened to them.
What does deserve scrutiny is a bail system that releases someone awaiting a burglary hearing with no financial conditions attached, and what comes next in the criminal case against Hemingway. The details in that complaint are damning on their face. But "damning on their face" has a way of getting complicated in courtrooms, and we're going to be watching.
For now, a 46-year-old doctor who spent his career keeping critically ill kids alive is dead. His wife is in critical condition. His children, 8 and 12, ran out of their house in the dark because a stranger was killing their parents. Whatever questions the investigation still has to answer, that's the reality sitting at the center of this story, and it's worth letting it land before the noise starts.
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