{"id":58418,"date":"2025-12-11T22:23:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T22:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/58418\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T22:23:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T22:23:08","slug":"machete-attack-victims-identified-remembered-as-beautiful-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/58418\/","title":{"rendered":"Machete attack victims identified, remembered as ‘beautiful people’"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCRANTON \u2014 The district attorney identified Thursday the victims of Tuesday\u2019s fatal machete attack at the Hotel Jermyn Apartments in the city, including a surviving victim he said remains in critical condition.<\/p>\n

All three women were or are \u201cwonderful people,\u201d a neighbor said Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Linda P. Fortuna, 61, and Terry M. Muller, 59, were killed in the heinous attack, as was Muller\u2019s service dog, a roughly 18-month-old golden retriever named Nayla, Lackawanna County District Attorney Brian Gallagher said in a news release. It notes Muller was a military veteran.<\/p>\n

Marilyn Joan Waller, 66, seriously wounded in the attack that killed Fortuna and Muller, remains in critical care at Geisinger Community Medical Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s still considered critical,\u201d Gallagher said Thursday morning. \u201cI think she has to undergo a number of surgeries. \u2026 I don\u2019t think she\u2019s out of the woods yet, but everything looks promising.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Hotel Jermyn Apartments in downtown Scranton on Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (REBECCA PARTICKA\/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)<\/p>\n

A family member of Waller\u2019s declined an interview request. Efforts to find and reach family members of the deceased victims were not immediately successful.<\/p>\n

The man accused of the attack, Michael Willie Marquis Woods, 38, and his victims lived on the sixth floor of the apartment building at 326 Biden St. Officers responding to the building Tuesday night found Woods covered in blood holding a machete near Biden Street and Wyoming Avenue and took him into custody.<\/p>\n

\"WoodsWoods (Submitted)<\/p>\n

Gallagher has called the attack \u201cpure evil.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Beautiful people\u2019<\/p>\n

Paula Taylor, who said she also lives on the sixth floor of the apartment building but wasn\u2019t there at the time attack, knows or knew everybody involved in the tragedy. She described the victims as \u201cbeautiful people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLinda especially,\u201d Taylor said of Fortuna, describing her as a kind, sharing and very neighborly woman with a great spirit. \u201cShe\u2019s fairly new here, but you know some people are just one-of-a-kind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LindaLinda P. Fortuna<\/p>\n

An obituary for Fortuna notes she loved bus trips and lunch with her friends and was a member of the \u201cWaldorf Tiki Bar.\u201d The Waldorf Park German American Federation, or Waldorf Park G.A.F., is a social club located in the East Mountain section of Scranton; a club officer confirmed Fortuna was a social member.<\/p>\n

Born in Miami, Florida, Fortuna earned an associates degree at Lackawanna Junior College and worked at Moses Taylor Hospital and later Boscov\u2019s in Scranton prior to her retirement, per her obituary.<\/p>\n

A memorial service will be held Sunday at the Lawrence E. Young Funeral Home in Clarks Summit, beginning at 3 p.m. Friends may visit from 1 p.m. until the service. A graveside service will follow Monday at 10 a.m. at Cathedral Cemetery in Scranton.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll are welcome to attend,\u201d the obituary notes.<\/p>\n

Little information about Muller was immediately available, but Taylor described her as \u201ca good woman, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTerry was very helpful,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cMy boyfriend was sick, (and) she always was giving me suggestions and different things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor said Waller, the surviving victim, \u201ckept to herself\u201d but called her a \u201cvery nice lady.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were all wonderful people,\u201d she said. \u201cI (saw) them on a daily basis. \u2026 They were all good people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The attack<\/p>\n

Woods, machete in hand, stabbed Fortuna in the chest Tuesday as she stepped off an elevator about 6 p.m., police said. He then attacked Muller, throwing her to the ground and stabbing her in the chest. Both women were pronounced dead at the hospital.<\/p>\n

Police found Waller, who suffered a \u201csevere chest wound\u201d and whose hand was nearly severed in the attack, in apartment 605. The assailant attacked her with the machete when she opened her apartment door, according to charging documents.<\/p>\n

Woods, who lived in apartment 612, told police he smoked PCP, a hallucinogenic drug, earlier in the day.<\/p>\n

Investigators are still waiting on the results of a laboratory analysis of what, if anything, was in Woods\u2019 system at the time of the homicides, Gallagher said Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\"DistrictDistrict Attorney Brian Gallagher responds to questions regarding Tuesday night\u2019s machete attack at the Hotel Jermyn during a news conference at the Scranton Police Department headquarters on Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025. (REBECCA PARTICKA\/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)<\/p>\n

Woods faces two counts of criminal homicide, as well as counts of attempted criminal homicide, aggravated assault, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated cruelty to animals for killing the service dog, Nayla.<\/p>\n

He remains in Lackawanna County Prison. District Judge Alyce Farrell denied bail at an arraignment Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

Former Hotel Jermyn<\/p>\n

Officials had removed police tape from the front of the apartment building where the attack took place, the former Hotel Jermyn, as of Wednesday afternoon. There was little activity outside the building when a reporter interviewed Taylor there Thursday.<\/p>\n

A historic downtown landmark, the building once served as a nightspot for dinner and dancing at the Manhattan Club or the Omar Room and was a shopping destination for many, according to the Lackawanna Historical Society. It transitioned into apartments in 1997.<\/p>\n

Developers announced a financing deal to create the apartment complex there in June 1996, the Hotel Jermyn having been closed since 1995, when its heating system failed. The building was converted to include 85 affordable apartments for older adults and individuals with disabilities, per an article published in The Sunday Times in January 1997, while the conversion was ongoing.<\/p>\n

A woman who answered a call to the phone number listed for the Hotel Jermyn Apartments said Thursday she could not comment. The Hotel Jermyn Apartments\u2019 Facebook page describes it as affordable housing for eligible people aged 55 and older and the permanently disabled.<\/p>\n

\"AA \u201cno soliciting\u201d sign on the doors of the Hotel Jermyn Apartments in downtown Scranton on Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (REBECCA PARTICKA\/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)<\/p>\n

Taylor, a resident of the Hotel Jermyn Apartments for about three years, said her experience there has been positive. She essentially described Tuesday\u2019s episode of horrific violence as an uncharacteristic aberration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings have been so good here,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cMy manager has really turned this building around. \u2026 I don\u2019t want the public to start thinking: \u2018oh God, you know, it\u2019s a bad place.\u2019 It\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the victims, Taylor also knows Woods, the alleged perpetrator who lived on her floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have opened the door for him, I would have, because every now and then he might ask me for a cigarette,\u201d she said. \u201cYou would have never thought. Never in a million years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gallagher said the criminal investigation is ongoing.<\/p>\n

Staff Writer Geri Gibbons contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON \u2014 The district attorney identified Thursday the victims of Tuesday\u2019s fatal machete attack at the Hotel Jermyn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[31966,3078,31965,178,180,179,2794],"class_list":{"0":"post-58418","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-hotel","9":"tag-jermyn","10":"tag-machete","11":"tag-scranton","12":"tag-scranton-headlines","13":"tag-scranton-news","14":"tag-stabbing"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58418","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=58418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}