A man fatally stabbed a woman and a dog, injured 3 others on the Beltway near DC before a trooper killed the suspect
By Cindy Von Quednow, Sarah Dewberry, CNN
(CNN) — A man stabbed four people, one fatally, before he was shot and killed by a Virginia State Police trooper on the Interstate 495 Beltway near Washington, DC, Sunday afternoon, authorities said.
A dog was also stabbed to death during the incident, Virginia State Police said in a news release.
The incident was described as road rage and is not believed to be terrorism-related, officials said.
The suspect, described only as a male, confronted the responding state trooper with a knife and was shot in self-defense, police said.
The victim who died was described as a 39-year-old woman.
Several lanes of the interstate were closed as police investigated.
A man was driving with his wife when traffic slowed significantly and he saw two cars “kind of banged up,” he told CNN. He then spotted two people covered in blood.
He thought their injuries were from an accident until he saw a man with a knife, he said.
A woman appeared to be trying to stop the assailant, but the man kept swinging his knife, the witness said.
“I just kept driving with the traffic,” he said. “And I don’t know if I should have stopped or not, but it was really, it was really scary.”
A second witness described a woman covered in blood trying to defend herself from a man.
Another witness, on his way home from a weekend with family, saw a scuffle he now believes was a stabbing. He then saw a state trooper pull up and fire at least two to three shots at the man.
This story has been updated with additional information.
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