Snow tracks lead police to man who stabbed 11-year-old in random act, Michigan cops say

A Michigan man broke into a random home overnight Thursday and stabbed an 11-year-old boy 10 times, according to media and police reports.

Soon after the incident, 21-year-old Denny William McNees was apprehended and charged with assault with intent to commit murder and first-degree home invasion, the Grand Rapids Police Department said.

McNees did not have any connection to the home where the boy was attacked, police said. “Police are confident this was a random act,” the department said in a Facebook post.

The boy’s mother, Yahira Suarez, told WOOD-TV her son was stabbed multiple times each in the back of his head and face.

“He had no reason whatsoever. He said ‘I just felt like killing,’” Yahira Suarez said, according to the TV station. “He went door to door, and he was trying to open doors and my backdoor happened to be the door he was able to get in and that was it. He chose my son.”

The boy was taken to a local hospital and was treated for non-life threatening injuries, the police department said.

Thirty minutes after a K-9 crew began searching for the suspect, he was “taken into custody without incident,” according to Grand Rapids police. He was apprehended around 2 miles away from where the crime occurred.

Grand Rapids police Sgt. Dan Adams told WOOD-TV they were able to find him due to his tracks in the freshly fallen snow.

McNees is being held on a $500,000 bond in the Kent County Jail, police said. He was arraigned Friday, according to police.

The police department used the incident as a way to remind citizens to “secure your property.”

“Due to the nature of this incident we felt it necessary to provide this information to our followers as a reminder to secure your property and to be diligent in ensuring one’s personal safety,” the Grand Rapids Police Department wrote on Facebook.