Background: The scene at Margate Manor Apartments in Mantua, Virginia, after the stabbings (WRC-TV/YouTube). Inset: Chhatra Thapa (Fairfax County Police Department).
A Virginia grandfather stabbed his wife, daughter, and son-in-law with a 10-inch “curved dagger” before a responding police officer shot him dead, authorities say.
Chhatra Thapa, 54, fatally stabbed his wife, 52-year-old Binda Thapa, and daughter, 33-year-old Mamta Thapa, the Fairfax County Police Department announced. The suspect also attacked his son-in-law, who was still hospitalized in “life-threatening condition” as of Wednesday.
On Monday at about 5 a.m., a man was outside his Margate Manor apartment on the 3900 block of Persimmon Drive in Mantua, Virginia, cleaning snow off his car. He then “heard a disturbance” inside the apartment, where he lived with his wife, Mamta Thapa, his in-laws, and his 1-year-old son.
The son-in-law called 911, as did a neighbor who heard the “commotion,” and then the son-in-law went back into the apartment to investigate, Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said during a press conference. The son-in-law entered his home to find his wife with multiple stab wounds and his father-in-law with a 10-inch “curved dagger” that also resembled a “meat cleaver.”
The suspect was in the process of stabbing his wife after already having stabbed his daughter, police said, “and then the father-in-law turned the knife on his son-in-law.”
Two Fairfax County police officers had been dispatched to the scene and arrived “within several minutes,” the law enforcement agency went on. As they entered the apartment, they say they saw Chhatra Thapa “literally in progress stabbing his son in law with that knife, with that curved, long-bladed dagger.”
The officer in front reportedly “gave repeated commands” to the suspect to drop the knife, but not only did he refuse, he “still proceeds to stab the son-in-law,” police said. The officer then shot Chhatra Thapa, killing him.
“To describe this scene as bloody is an understatement,” Davis said. “The damage and the chaos and the carnage that was perpetrated by this man in his 50s on his own family is unimaginable.”
“We don”t know yet what turmoil, what strife was happening in their lives, but I can’t imagine anything would compel any, any human being to butcher his own family like he did today,” the police chief added of Chhatra Thapa.
Throughout the “bloodbath,” as Davis described it, the 1-year-old child was physically unharmed. Detectives took him into protective custody, and with the help of child protective services, found “an appropriate family placement.”
Mamta Thapa, the daughter, and Binda Thapa, the mother, were brought to a local hospital where they were pronounced dead. The son-in-law was brought to an area hospital “in life-threatening condition and remains hospitalized,” police said on Wednesday.
The officer who shot and killed the suspect was a 2 1/2-year veteran assigned to the Mason Police District, the Fairfax County Police Department said. He was placed on a “restricted duty status pending the outcome of criminal and administrative investigations,” but Davis praised his work, as well as the two 911 callers.
“That young police officer who discharged his firearm, preliminarily, and I saw the body-worn camera and our executive command team saw the body-worn camera footage, did exactly what we expect him to do, and, quite frankly, exactly what our community expects him to do,” Davis said. “So his grace under pressure, his bravery, his effort to save lives may, in fact, have done that.”
