A 65-year-old woman was fatally stabbed at a Barnes & Noble store in Florida in an apparently unprovoked attack, according to authorities.
A suspect is in custody for first-degree murder, according to police and online court records.
The incident occurred shortly before 8 p.m. on Monday at a Barnes & Noble in Palm Beach Gardens, according to police.
Officers responding to the stabbing found the victim — identified by police as Rita Loncharich — unresponsive inside the store with a knife in her back, according to the Palm Beach Gardens Police Department’s probable cause affidavit.
Officers “immediately rendered aid” and she was transported to a local hospital, where she died from her injuries, the Palm Beach Gardens Police Department said.
The booking photo for Antonio Moore.
Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office
The suspect allegedly ran out of the store following the stabbing, according to police.
Witnesses and store surveillance footage helped provide a description of the suspect, according to the affidavit. Investigators located the suspect — identified by police as 40-year-old Antonio Moore — a short time later, in the woods near the store, in clothing matching what was observed in the surveillance footage, according to the affidavit.
Moore allegedly admitted to stabbing the victim in the back with a fixed-blade knife without provocation or motive, according to the affidavit. He allegedly told police that he had an “internal build up that led to his fight or flight response kicking in with Rita being the closest person inside the store,” the affidavit stated.
He heard the shocked victim say “he stabbed me,” before he allegedly ran from the store into the woods, where officers found him, according to the affidavit.
A Barnes & Noble store in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, where a woman was fatally stabbed.
WPBF
The suspect told police he had arrived in Palm Beach Gardens about a week prior on a bus from Georgia and was in the store charging his phone prior to the attack, according to the affidavit.
Moore was booked Tuesday morning on a charge of first-degree premeditated murder, online jail records show.
During his first court appearance on Wednesday, the court found probable cause exists for the charge and ordered that he continue to be held without bond, according to online court records. He is scheduled to return to court next month.
Barnes & Noble’s press office said the company does not comment on ongoing police investigations.
ABC News’ Benjamin Stein contributed to this report.
