{"id":131764,"date":"2026-03-06T23:43:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T23:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/131764\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T23:43:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T23:43:20","slug":"close-friend-reminisces-about-kindhearted-woman-killed-in-scranton-machete-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/131764\/","title":{"rendered":"Close friend reminisces about ‘kindhearted’ woman killed in Scranton machete attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

*WARNING: Some readers may find details of the case included below disturbing.<\/p>\n

Linda Fortuna had heart trouble and Theresa Fagerlin once figured someday she would find her best friend dead of a heart attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut not this,\u201d Fagerlin said Friday outside the Lackawanna County Courthouse. \u201cThis has been a hard time for us. This was a senseless, evil act, and that’s all I’m going to say. I’m here for justice for Linda. She was a kindhearted person.\u201d<\/p>\n

An hour earlier, Fagerlin sat in a third-floor courtroom during a preliminary hearing for Michael Willie Marquis Woods.<\/p>\n

Two women died, another seriously injured <\/p>\n

Scranton police say Woods stabbed Fortuna and two other women Dec. 9 inside the Jermyn Apartments. Fortuna and Terry Muller died. Marilyn Waller survived serious wounds but faces more surgery, her daughter said Friday. Woods also stabbed to death Muller\u2019s golden retriever service dog, Nayla.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/p>\n

Scranton Police Department<\/p>\n

Michael Willie Marquis Woods is accused in a Dec. 9, 2025 machete attack on three women and a dog at the Hotel Jermyn Apartments in downtown Scranton.<\/p>\n

After listening to and watching often gruesome evidence, Magisterial District Judge Christopher J. Szewczyk sent all charges to county court for further action. Woods is charged with first-, second-, and third-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated cruelty to animals, burglary and attempted burglary and homicide.<\/p>\n

Surveillance video viewed in court<\/p>\n

Hallway surveillance video played during the hearing shows Woods walking calmly along sixth-floor hallways carrying a machete. An evidence photo depicts a 25-inch-long machete with a partially serrated 18-inch blade.<\/p>\n

As Fortuna steps off an elevator, Woods walks up and plunges the machete into her chest, the video shows and city Detective Michael Schultz testified.<\/p>\n

Woods then turns and stabs Muller in the chest. She had been talking to a friend standing in the hallway, Schultz testified. Woods then walked into Muller\u2019s apartment and stabbed the dog.<\/p>\n

The friend escaped unharmed to her apartment, but Woods then forced his way into Marilyn Waller\u2019s apartment, stabbed her in the stomach and slashed her right wrist, virtually severing her hand, Schultz testified.<\/p>\n

Muller, 59 and a military veteran, got up and bled heavily when she did, Schultz testified. Video shows her rising and staggering into her apartment.<\/p>\n

Schultz testified Woods did not harm Muller\u2019s husband, who was bed-ridden in the apartment.<\/p>\n

Fortuna and Muller died from the chest wounds, county Coroner Tim Rowland testified.<\/p>\n

\"Police<\/p>\n

Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office<\/p>\n

Police say this photo taken from a hallway surveillance video shows Michael Woods standing in an elevator smoking and holding the machete he used to kill two women and seriously injure another Dec. 9,2026 in the Jermyn Apartments in Scranton.<\/p>\n

Waller survived, has undergone three surgeries to repair torso damage, surgery to reattach her hand and likely faces several more hand surgeries, relatives said after the hearing. She may never regain full use of her hand, though she can wiggle fingers. Waller has returned to her apartment. She\u2019s already adjusted and types texts quickly with her left hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was always the one who was stronger and did things,\u201d Waller\u2019s sister, Doreen McGuire, said. \u201cAnd when this happened, I thought she’s gonna survive this. She is so strong. I could not believe it that this is my sister.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the hearing, Chief Deputy District Attorney Sara Varela played a recording of Waller\u2019s frantic 911 call after she was stabbed.<\/p>\n

‘Please help me, please hurry’<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease help me, please hurry, please hurry, please hurry,\u201d Waller tells a dispatcher. \u201cHe\u2019s stabbing people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moments later, Waller says, \u201cHurry, hurry, hurry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what to do, I can\u2019t move my hand. God help me,\u201d she cries. \u201cI called my sister, please help me. I gotta call my sister.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a dispatcher questions her, she describes her attacker as \u201ca black man in a blue hoodie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s blood all over me,\u201d she said. \u201cPlease don\u2019t let me die, please don\u2019t let me die, please don\u2019t let me die.\u201d<\/p>\n

A door knock in the background follows.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the police,\u201d the dispatcher tells her. <\/p>\n

\"Police<\/p>\n

Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office<\/p>\n

Police say Michael Woods used this machete to kill two women and seriously injure another inside the Jermyn Apartments in Scranton on Dec. 9, 2026.<\/p>\n

Separately, Muller called for help, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe stabbed us,\u201d she shouts. \u201cI\u2019m heavily bleeding … 326 Biden St. … I can\u2019t breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTell me where you\u2019re at again,\u201d the dispatcher says.<\/p>\n

There was no response.<\/p>\n

In the hallway, video shows, Woods calmly entered the elevator Fortuna just left after the attacks. A photo presented during the hearing shows him inside the elevator. He\u2019s holding the machete in his right hand and smoking a cigarette. He walked out the Jermyn\u2019s entrance onto Biden Street where police encountered him at the Wyoming Avenue intersection and took him to the ground.<\/p>\n

Numerous times afterward, Woods said, \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d Schultz testified.<\/p>\n

Woods told police he had smoked the hallucinogenic drug PCP. District Attorney Brian Gallagher said after the hearing Friday that a test of Woods\u2019 blood showed PCP. But, Gallagher said, Woods was also lucid enough to warn a nurse about to draw his blood that he\u2019s allergic to iodine, often used to sterilize the site where blood is drawn.<\/p>\n

Woods did not testify and only occasionally whispered to his lawyer, assistant public defender David Cherundolo, at times. His family members attended the hearing but declined to comment afterward.<\/p>\n

Fagerlin and other friends and family of the victims were in the courtroom as a county victim advocate sat nearby.<\/p>\n

Before an aide played the stabbing video, Varela turned and told the family and friends they could step out if they didn\u2019t want to see it. <\/p>\n

\"Doreen<\/p>\n

Borys Krawczeniuk<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

WVIA News <\/p>\n

Doreen McGuire, left, and Marissa Dankulich talk to reporters outside the Lackawanna County Courthouse on March 6, 2026. They spoke about their relative Marilyn Waller surviving a brutal machete attack Dec. 9, 2025 in Scranton. Waller is McGuire’s sister and Dankulich’s mother. <\/p>\n

Marissa Dankulich, Waller\u2019s daughter, and McGuire stayed to watch.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to see instead of all these secondhand accounts, I wanted to know what he did,\u201d Dankulich said.<\/p>\n

Woods\u2019 behavior in the courtroom surprised them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all saw the videos of it, and he (was) just emotionless, like I didn’t see him tear (up), nothing,\u201d Dankulich said. \u201cHow does he not have an emotion for what he did?\u201d<\/p>\n

Fagerlin, 61, a Scranton resident, took up the offer to step out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not ready yet to see those videos. I’m a person that I like to remember the living as they are,\u201d Fagerlin said. \u201cI don’t want my inner peace disturbed, if you can understand that. I’m a strong person, but I’m just not ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Theresa<\/p>\n

Borys Krawczeniuk<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

WVIA News<\/p>\n

Theresa Fagerlin speaks outside the Lackawanna County Courthouse on March 6, 2026, to reporters who asked her about her friend, Linda Fortuna. Fagerlin had just attended a preliminary hearing for Michael Woods, who is accused of killing Fortuna and Terry Muller and seriously wounding Marilyn Waller inside the Jermyn Apartments on Dec. 9, 2025. <\/p>\n

Fagerlin declined to describe her thoughts when she saw three deputy sheriffs lead a handcuffed and shackled Woods into the courtroom. Woods, 38, lived on the Jermyn\u2019s sixth floor.<\/p>\n

‘We went everywhere together’ <\/p>\n

Fagerlin said she and Fortuna were close.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went everywhere together. We had lunches, dinners, laughs, (she\u2019d) come up to my house for Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter,\u201d Fagerlin said. \u201cI took her to her doctor’s appointments. She was kind of like my sister.\u201d<\/p>\n

They met in 1980 as students at Scranton Technical High School. They lost touch, but then Fagerlin\u2019s mother died in 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe went to my mother’s funeral, and we kind of got closer, and then, you know, Linda’s had a lot of tragedy,\u201d Fagerlin said.<\/p>\n

In recent years, Fortuna\u2019s fianc\u00e9, who \u201cspoiled her rotten,\u201d died of natural causes, a brother died, her son died, Fagerlin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s just a shame. She went through a lot with her son,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She and other friends helped Fortuna deal with the grief. Fortuna loved traveling to casinos to gamble, shopping at Boscov\u2019s and eating at Longhorn Steakhouse, Brick Oven and Ragnacci\u2019s Restaurant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLinda loved to go out and eat,\u201d Fagerlin said. <\/p>\n

That was only one of the ways they spent time together.<\/p>\n

“I turned 60, she went with me and my family on a cruise,\u201d Fagerlin said. \u201cAnd that’s why I was very mad, very upset that, you know, I had the time with her, but I wanted more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, Fortuna sold her West Scranton home and moved into the Jermyn in October.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not want her to move to the Jermyn,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Fagerlin said she worked for a nearby bank and sometimes saw people coming and going from the Jermyn.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I used to hold my breath, because the characters that used to come out of there … and everything,\u201d she said. \u201cWe had arguments. I asked her to carry mace. You know what I mean? I just really didn’t want her there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortuna applied for other apartments, but they all had waiting lists, and she just wanted to get out of her home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe memories weren’t the greatest there. She just wanted to get out and … she wanted to start traveling, and she was actually happy there (at the Jermyn),\u201d Fagerlin said.<\/p>\n

Her friend did not know Woods, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI go to talk to her all the time,\u201d Fagerlin said. \u201cSometimes I go and pick up the phone just to tell her if something good is happening. And then I just hold back, and you know, she’s not here. He took her away from me … Now I can’t bring her back. Nobody can bring her back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"*WARNING: Some readers may find details of the case included below disturbing. Linda Fortuna had heart trouble and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-131764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}