A 23-year-old man holding a knife above his head was shot by Wakefield police officers after he allegedly rushed at them in the basement of his mother’s home, where she lay dead on the floor with traumatic injuries, the Boston Globe reported Wednesday.
When Wakefield Police arrived, they found Pamela Wood dead in basement (Photo by Matt Gush/Shutterstock)
The slain woman, 61-year-old Pamela Wood was a speech therapist working for the Wakefield Public Schools, failed to show up for an 8:30 am meeting at Greenwood Elementary School, according to press briefing given by Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan, the Boston Globe reported.
School officials contacted family members who went to Wood’s residence at 11 Otis St. in Wakefield, but didn’t have a key to enter and alerted the police, according to a Wakefield Police press release. When police and firefighters arrived, they pried open the back door and proceeded to the basement, where they found Wood “obviously deceased,” Ryan told the Boston Globe. Then, her son, Timothy Martin of Manchester, New Hampshire, ran out from the corner of the basement holding a knife above his head, allegedly charging at police officers.
Constrained by the tight basement quarters, Ryan said, as well as “the suspect refusing to put down the knife” when commanded to drop it, “Wakefield officers discharged their weapons, striking Mr. Martin.” (RELATED: Toledo Teen Stabs His Mom Over Cheeseburger)
Ryan told the Globe that Martin was treated later Tuesday in intensive care at Lahey Clinic in Burlington, and officials expect to file “various charges” against him.
Wood suffered “multiple traumatic injuries,” according to Ryan and had “some wounds that seemed consistent with the knife.” Investigators are waiting on more information from the medical examiner.