SURF CITY, N.J. — A Pennsylvania woman is facing murder charges after prosecutors said she stabbed and killed her 87-year-old father and his girlfriend in their Surf City, New Jersey, home.
According to NJ.com and The Associated Press, authorities arrested Sherry Lee Heffernan, 55, of Landenberg, Pennsylvania, on Monday, one day after Surf City police found John Enders and Francoise Pitoy, 75, dead in a North Seventh Street home.
“It was readily apparent they were deceased, having suffered multiple obvious stab wounds,” the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office said in a news release Tuesday.
Medical examiners later determined that Enders’ injuries included the “severance of the right carotid artery and blunt-force trauma,” the release said. The results of Pitoy’s autopsy, which was slated for Tuesday, have not been released.
Investigators believe that Heffernan, Enders’ daughter, “was responsible for the deaths,” Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer said in a statement.
Heffernan, who faces two murder counts and weapons charges, was arrested in Pennsylvania but will be taken to the Ocean County Jail, the news release said.
No further details, including a possible motive, were immediately available.
– The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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