The homeless woman accused of stabbing a California mom as she changed her baby inside a Macy’s Herald Square bathroom told The Post “voices” in her head ordered her to “kill.”
“It said that I had to go to Macy’s and kill someone,” Kerri Aherne said during an exclusive jailhouse interview Saturday.
Aherne – who still had blood under her fingernails Saturday as she sat in the visitor’s center of the Rose M. Singer Center on Rikers Island, where she is being held on an attempted murder charge – described in chilling detail how the attack unfolded.
Kerri Aherne was arrested and charged with attempted murder for the alleged attack at Macy’s during the busy holiday season. James Keivom/Pool/ New York Post
The 43-year-old former home health aide from Massachusetts took a green cab from her transitional housing unit at the Manhattan Psychiatric Center to the famed department store, she said.
She claimed she bought a smooth, foot-long kitchen knife on the 8th floor with some of the $150 she got from a social worker before she left the housing unit — where she spent just a day, she said, before heading to Macy’s.
Then, Aherne said, she went to the 7th floor.
“The voice said, ‘Kill someone in the bathroom or you will die,” she said.
Aherme was previously held at Manhattan Psychiatric Center following a year of treatment. James Keivom
She entered the bathroom and saw a woman changing a baby.
Here’s the latest on the NYC Macy’s stabbing
“I stabbed her in the back.”
“The voice said, ‘Kill someone in the bathroom or you will die,” she said. Desheania Andrews for Ny Post
The victim began “screaming for help. She was screaming for someone to call 911.
“I was covered in blood,” she added.
Aherne recalled how others in the bathroom helped the victim, then recounted her time in a patrol car her arrest.
She claimed she bought a smooth, foot-long kitchen knife on the 8th floor. Kevin C Downs forThe New York Post
She asked the police officer where she was going.
“To jail,” the officer said.
“I was relieved. I don’t want to go back to the hospital. I’m scared of the hospital,” she said.
She has heard voices in her head since she was 6-years-old, said Aherne, who also faces assault, child endangerment and weapons possession charges.
A Macy’s department store is seen decorated in Christmas decorations in Herald Square, Manhattan, New York City. Jimin Kim/SOPA Images/Shutterstock
“I am being tortured by the government,” she insisted. “They put words into my head. They told me that I had to kill or they would kill me.”
Aherne apologized to the victim — while again shifting blame.
“I apologize. Is she okay? I know she had a little baby,” she said. “It’s not my fault. She should be upset with the government.
She has heard voices in her head since she was 6-years-old, said Aherne. Kevin C Downs forThe New York Post
“I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t want to kill anyone,” Aherne said. “It’s not me. It’s the government’s fault. They are telling me to do it and that’s why I want to sue them.”
The attack unfolded around 3:10 p.m. inside a seventh-floor bathroom at the Midtown flagship store, where the 38-year-old tourist had taken her 10-month-old daughter to be changed, prosecutors said.
The baby was not hurt, and the mother was able to fight off her attacker before help arrived, authorities said.
The alleged knife-wielding maniac has no prior arrests in the Big Apple. Desheania Andrews for Ny Post
Aherne had been released from a psychiatric facility just before the attack and purchased the knife inside Macy’s as she heard voices telling her to kill, authorities said during her Friday arraignment.
Court records show Aherne was arrested in Massachusetts in 2018 for making online threats, including posts about killing Sen. Elizabeth Warren and “getting a gun” to shoot someone at a police station.
At the time, police searched her home, but found no weapons, she said.
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She was then allegedly hospitalized in Massachusetts for two years — an experience which left her scarred, she said.
After her release, Aherne fled.
Convinced men were talking about killing her, Aherne got an Uber straight to New York City, paying $530 for the trip she concealed from her family, Aherne said.
It’s unclear what landed her in Manhattan Psychiatric Center.
Aherne had been released from a psychiatric facility just before the attack and purchased the knife inside Macy’s as she heard voices telling her to kill, authorities said during her Friday arraignment. AFP via Getty Images
Doctors later diagnosed her with schizoaffective disorder, Aherne said, which she described as schizophrenia with a mood disorder.
Aherne — who insisted she does not believe she has the condition — was given four medications twice a day, including antipsychotic medication and Prozac, with one administered by injection.
She claimed she was released from the Manhattan facility Dec. 11, received medication that morning, but did not receive it later that night after returning to transitional housing on the hospital campus, nor the following day.
She was then allegedly hospitalized in Massachusetts for two years — an experience which left her scarred, she said. Obtained by NY Post
She also claimed the government uses what she described as a black weapon buried underground in Russia to transmit voices into her head.
“They tell me, kill or they will kill you,” she said.
Aherne said she hopes to stay in New York once the voices stop.
“I like the bustle. I like Central Park, Times Square,” she said.
The victim, a civilian employee of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, was rushed to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition and later released.
She and her family had been visiting New York on a holiday trip and were supposed to leave the day after the attack but remain in the city for legal proceedings, a family friend told The Post.