Words by Matthew Allen
A man has been captured in the fatal wounding of 18-year-old Nia Wilson, who was killed Sunday while remaining on a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station stage.
Experts said that the 27-year-old suspect, John Cowell, was caught Monday while riding a BART prepare after authorities were tipped off to his essence by different riders.
Depicting the charges against Cowell, BART Police Chief Carlos Rojas said that the 27-year-old suspect had seemed to haul out his blade unmerited and “very rapidly” wounded Wilson after she left a prepare at MacArthur Station in Oakland. Wilson’s sister, Lahtifa Wilson, 26, was additionally injured and is presently in stable condition at the healing facility.
Cowell at that point fled the BART station while experts rendered help to the two ladies, Rojas said.
“In my close to 30 years of police experience, it was probably one of the most vicious attacks that I have seen,” Rojas said at a news conference Monday.
The capture took after an enormous hunt by police, who were at last alarmed by BART travelers that the suspect was ready the metro framework.
The severe killing of Wilson, a youthful dark lady, had incited challenges in downtown Oakland and different parts of California Monday, started by the so far dubious conviction that the wrongdoing was racially propelled.
Prior Monday, Wilson’s guardian, Daryle Hallums, requested that individuals “stand down” while police scanned for the executioner.
Addressing correspondents later Monday night, Rojas said that Cowell was captured on an Antioch-bound prepare at the Pleasant Hill station around 6:30 p.m. The police boss portrayed the capture as “uneventful” and said that Cowell distinguished himself by name when asked and was in this way confined.
“This is the first step to achieving justice for Nia and her family,” Rojas said.
He said that there is currently no evidence connecting the suspect to “any type of radical group or to a white supremacist group,” but that police are still considering any possible motives. “We don’t take anything off the table,” he said. “While we don’t have any facts that suggest he is connected with any white supremacist group, we are going to explore all types of possibilities and options.”
Rojas said that security footage showed Cowell taking off his clothes after the stabbing, which the police chief said was a sign of the suspect’s “consciousness of guilt.”
Cowell has a brutal criminal history and was on parole, Rojas stated, including that he couldn’t give specifics about the speculate’s record.
KRON4 detailed Monday that Cowell had a controlling request recorded against him in 2016 by Kaiser Foundation for bugging a worker, and that he had been condemned to two years in jail soon thereafter to use a crate shaper amid a burglary. As per the news station, he was discharged on parole in May.
