Associated Press
COLTON, Calif. — A Southern California woman who once was found not guilty by reason of insanity to the attempted murder of her own children is now suspected of stabbing her daughter and two granddaughters.
Colton police are looking for Nicole Darrington-Clark, 43, the suspect in Monday’s attack that left her 1-year-old granddaughter dead and critically injured her daughter and 5-year-old granddaughter.
After the attack, Darrington-Clark fled the apartment she shared with the victims. Neighbors who responded to the mother’s screaming pleas found the grisly scene and horribly wounded children in the apartment.
In 2005, she pleaded guilty to stabbing her 14-year-old son and throwing her 10-year-old daughter out of a moving minivan. Neither child was seriously injured.
But a judge found Darrington-Clark not guilty by reason of insanity and sent her to a mental hospital.
A longtime friend of Darrington-Clark told the Riverside Press-Enterprise she was released a few years ago.
“I Facetimed with her a few days ago, and I was worried about her,” the friend, Cindy O’Neal, said. “I never thought she would do anything like this. I hope they do find her so she can’t hurt anyone else or herself.”
It wasn’t immediately clear when or why she was released from the mental hospital and whether the daughter in the 2005 attack is the same one critically injured Monday. Police did not immediately reply to a message seeking answers to those questions.
Investigators do not know the motive for the attack, Colton police Cpl. Ray Mendez said Monday.
Neighbor Patty Williams told the Riverside Press-Enterprise the wounded woman had been “stabbed everywhere.”
Another neighbor, Tim Hill, said she ran into his apartment seeking help after the attack. He said he ran upstairs to her apartment and saw the stabbed baby and found her sister in the closet, shaking.
Police decided they couldn’t wait for paramedics and took the girl to the hospital, Hill said.
Darrington-Clark should be considered armed and dangerous and may be driving a black Hyundai Sonata, police said.
“I’m sad,” Williams said. “I feel like my soul left my body because this is disgusting.”