{"id":59217,"date":"2025-12-12T15:12:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T15:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/59217\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T15:12:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T15:12:08","slug":"two-women-and-a-service-dog-killed-in-machete-attack-police-say-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/59217\/","title":{"rendered":"Two women and a service dog killed in machete attack, police say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">SCRANTON, Pa. (WNEP) &#8211; Two women were killed and another was hospitalized from a machete attack in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Police in Scranton said they are still investigating the machete attack at the Hotel Jermyn apartments on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Two women and a service dog were killed, plus a third woman was critically wounded and in the hospital.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThe vast majority of this incident, the vast majority is all on video surveillance and it is horrific to watch,\u201d Lackawanna County District Attorney Brian Gallagher said. \u201cThe offender and victims were residents of the Jermyn Hotel, and the motive and reasons for his actions remain under further investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The suspect was identified as 38-year-old Michael Woods. Police said he is a native of Jersey City, New Jersey, and relocated to Lackawanna County five years ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Woods has lived at the Hotel Jermyn apartments for the last few years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Police said they caught Woods leaving the apartment building wearing bloody clothing and clutching a bloody machete. It was a weapon investigators said security cameras captured him using on the three women and the dog in the building\u2019s sixth-floor hallway.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The police response was fast and honed by training.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe do have an extensive program for an active threat situation, and that\u2019s what we responded to yesterday, and it validates our training.\u201d Scranton Police Chief Thomas Carroll said during a briefing on Wednesday. \u201cYesterday\u2019s response validates our training.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Woods\u2019 apparent motive remains unknown.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">An initial review of public filings in Pennsylvania and New Jersey found no criminal cases connected to Woods. It\u2019s also unclear if Woods had any connection to the women he\u2019s accused of attacking, other than the fact that they lived in the same building.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Woods told police he smoked PCP, a powerful dissociative drug sometimes called angel dust, earlier in the day, but Gallagher said that was unconfirmed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThat\u2019s under current investigation,\u201d Gallagher said. \u201cWe don\u2019t know that right now. We\u2019ll have some answers as we move forward for you, but I don\u2019t want to speculate as to any type of drug or mental health defense or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"Two women are dead and one was hospitalized after a machete attack in Pennsylvania.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765552328_288_NUBJYAKWURHSROPOG72J4BX6WM.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>Two women are dead and one was hospitalized after a machete attack in Pennsylvania.(WNEP, SCRANTON POLICE DEPARTMENT, CNN)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Outside the apartment building on Wednesday, residents were seen going about their day with the night\u2019s horrors on everyone\u2019s minds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cPart of life. That\u2019s how it is today,\u201d Scranton resident Paul Burdulas said. \u201cIt\u2019s sad to say it, I mean, that was inexcusable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Erik Zimmerman started moving out last week and stopped by to grab the last of his stuff. He\u2019s glad he wasn\u2019t at the building on Tuesday night<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI probably do know the gentleman. It\u2019s like nice, older people, veterans, just your regular type people,\u201d Zimmerman described. \u201cIt\u2019s a nice, quiet place. It\u2019s a nice place, so it\u2019s pretty shocking.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Woods remains locked up at the Lackawanna County Prison without bail. He\u2019s due back in court for a preliminary hearing on Dec. 23.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 WNEP via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON, Pa. (WNEP) &#8211; Two women were killed and another was hospitalized from a machete attack in Pennsylvania.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[4860,2662,10454,31965,28,178,180,179,895],"class_list":{"0":"post-59217","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-attack","9":"tag-dog","10":"tag-killed","11":"tag-machete","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-scranton","14":"tag-scranton-headlines","15":"tag-scranton-news","16":"tag-service"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59217","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=59217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}