What to Know
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A Queens woman has been charged with stabbing five people, including three baby girls, at a maternity center in the borough early Friday
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Yu Fen Wang, 52, of Flushing, has been charged with five counts of attempted murder for the stabbing spree, police said
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Police hadn’t yet identified a motive for the stabbing spree
A Queens woman has been charged with stabbing five people, including three baby girls, at a maternity center in the borough early Friday.
Yu Fen Wang, 52, of Flushing, has been charged with five counts of attempted murder for the stabbing spree, police said.
Wang allegedly stabbed a 13-day-old girl and a 1-month-old girl in the stomach inside the center on 161st Street shortly before 4 a.m. on Friday.
She also allegedly stabbed a 22-day-old girl, lacerating her ear, chin and lip. All three babies were in critical but stable condition Friday, authorities said.
A 31-year-old father of a child at the center and a 63-year-old woman who worked there were also stabbed, according to police. Both were in critical but stable condition after the attacks.
Police found Wang unconscious on the basement of the center with her wrist slashed — a self-inflicted wound. As of Saturday morning, she was still hospitalized for her injuries, according to police.
Officials said Wang was undergoing a psychiatric evaluation in addition to receiving treatment.
Authorities said Wang may have attacked the worker before turning on the father after he tried to intervene.
She then allegedly started stabbing the children before two people called 911.
Police said both a butcher knife and a meat cleaver were found at the scene of the stabbings.
Elected officials in the area said the apparently unlicensed facility provided a place for mothers and theri babies to convalesce for a month after birth — a Chinese tradition. Authorities originally described the maternity center as an overnight daycare.
Nine babies and an unspecified number of parents were in the house at the time of the attack. A spokeswoman for the state’s Office of Children and Family Services told News 4 New York the center’s address did not come up as an OCFS-licensed or regulated childcare program.
“OCFS is saddened by this horrific situation and investigating it as a possible illegal operation,” she said in a statement Friday.
Police haven’t yet identified a motive for the attacks.
Wang’s attorney information wasn’t immediately available Saturday.