{"id":216688,"date":"2026-04-02T22:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T22:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/216688\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T22:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T22:34:08","slug":"woman-dead-after-man-randomly-stabs-her-in-martin-county-neighborhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/216688\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman dead after man randomly stabs her in Martin County neighborhood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">A woman is dead after she was randomly attacked in the Southwood community in Martin County. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The Martin County Sheriff&#8217;s Office responded to the 6000 block of SE Black Oak Lane on Thursday, following reports of an &#8220;unprovoked attack.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The victim, described as a woman in her 70s, was reportedly walking her dog when the suspect, 25-year-old Kersten Francilus, approached and began stabbing her with a steak knife, according to the sheriff&#8217;s office. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Sheriff John Budensiek says the victim had a &#8220;significant amount of stab wounds to the upper torso,&#8221; and that a neighbor tried to intervene during the attack, before deputies arrived at the scene and the suspect finally stopped stabbing the woman. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">They say there is no known relation between the suspect and victim, and Francilus has no known criminal history. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Deputies arrived on the scene after neighbors reported a man knocking on doors and acting erratically. The sheriff says Francilus was asking people who answered the door where the new bank was, though there is no bank nearby. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The suspect is now in custody, according to the sheriff&#8217;s office, and the investigation is still active. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Stay with WPTV for more updates. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman is dead after she was randomly attacked in the Southwood community in Martin County. The Martin&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":["post-216688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}