Inset: Marvina Butler-Hardy (Flagler County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The North Carolina parking lot where Marvina Butler-Hardy randomly stabbed a pregnant mother as she was walking with her toddler, according to police (WBTV).
A pregnant North Carolina mom walking in a grocery store parking lot with her 3-year-old child was randomly attacked by a woman in broad daylight, who plunged a knife into the mother after having “no prior interactions” with her, police say.
“The victim and the suspect did not know each other,” Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Detective Ashley Phillips said in a Facebook video explaining what happened when Marvina Butler-Hardy allegedly attacked the woman.
The stabbing attack unfolded at a Harris Teeter grocery store in Charlotte on March 18, with officers responding that morning shortly before 11:30 a.m. to find the pregnant victim suffering from non-life-threatening injuries. “When they arrived, the victim stated that she had been stabbed,” Phillips said.
Police allege that the victim was walking in the Harris Teeter parking lot with her 3-year-old child when Butler-Hardy — who is facing charges of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or inflict serious injury and battery of an unborn child — set upon her.
“The amount of cop cars and then hearing my coworkers talk about it, that really took me aback,” said Sarah Click, a woman who works in the Cotswold Shopping Center where the Harris Teeter is located.
“I had no idea something like that would happen up here at all,” Click told local CBS affiliate WBTV. “The immediate thing that I thought of was someone just coming at you like this — like a horror film.”
Butler-Hardy allegedly fled in a Hyundai Elantra from the scene and drove to Florida, where she was pulled over for a broken windshield on Monday morning. State troopers spotted a large crack in the window and pulled her over outside of Jacksonville on a probable cause traffic stop, according to her arrest report.
Butler-Hardy allegedly handed the trooper who walked up to speak with her a North Carolina identification card instead of a driver’s license. A “be on the lookout” alert had been put out for a silver Hyundai with a description matching the car Butler-Hardy was driving and listing her as a suspect in the Charlotte stabbing.
“I asked Marvina why she had an ID card only and she advised that her driving license is suspended,” the trooper wrote in the arrest report. “Due to computer issues I was having as well as radio issues, I was unable to confirm if the driver was the [stabbing] suspect.”
Another trooper arrived at the scene and ran Butler-Hardy’s name in the system, found the warrant put out for the stabbing, and confirmed she was wanted out of Mecklenburg County.
“Marvina was secured immediately in handcuffs and placed at the front of my patrol vehicle,” the arresting trooper said. “After further observation of Marvina’s vehicle, I did observe the paper tag out of North Carolina laying flat above the rear seat and it did appear there was tape on the rear window but was peeled off.”
Butler-Hardy is currently awaiting extradition from Florida to North Carolina. Police say she will be brought back to Mecklenburg County to face charges. She does not have a court date set yet.
