Slit throat victims out of danger

After having their throats slashed by a mentally disturbed relative while they slept during the wee hours of Thursday morning, the elderly La Brea woman and her daughter said they believed that they had knocked on death’s door. Maggie Charles, 81, and daughter Margaret Charles, 54, a schoolteacher, arrived at hospital just in time for doctors to halt the massive bleeding. The man who committed the act, police said, apparently ran amok, and police were still searching for him yesterday and have reported that he is mentally ill. Yesterday, mother and daughter lay side by side at San Fernando General Hospital. Though barely able to speak, the women muttered a few words about the horrible experience of waking up and seeing themselves soaked in blood at their Celestial Park home at Vessigny Village at 2.30 am.

The mother and daughter lived in the house with a male relative and an elderly person who is crippled. The women were asleep in the same bed when the man attacked them, and relatives next door responded to the commotion during the attack. The man slashed Margaret with a knife which cut her from the back of her neck to the base of her left ear. The  knife also cut the skin deeply across the throat. Muttering a few words from her bed, Margaret said, “I opened my eyes and realised I was covered in blood. I was confused about what was happening.”