Blood-stained California woman stabbed one victim, drove over another in double killing, police say
A woman in Northern California has been arrested and charged after authorities say she killed two women within hours of each other, stabbing one and running over the other with her car.
Anila Baby, 32, of Milpitas, has been charged with two counts of murder by the Santa Clara County district attorney’s office.
Around noon on Aug. 28, Milpitas police responded to calls that an SUV had hit a woman in the parking area of an apartment complex. Responders found Anjana Hari, 32, lying in the parking lot bleeding from her head and pronounced her dead shortly after, according to a detective’s statement provided by the district attorney’s office.
Witnesses told police that they saw the victim approaching the car when the driver suddenly accelerated, hit the woman and drove off. Officers found Baby in the car that witnesses had described in a Walgreens parking lot shortly after noon. She was incoherent, injured and she had blood on her arms and legs, according to the detective’s statement.
About two hours later, Ann Matthew, 39, was found dead in her San Jose home. Matthew appeared to have been stabbed, strangled and had signs of trauma to her head.
Police determined that Baby was likely in the victim’s house between around 10:30 a.m. and 11:40 a.m. — not long before she allegedly ran a woman over with her car. Baby and the victim knew each other, authorities said.
A police analysis of surveillance footage from the home showed that multiple clips from that morning had been deleted, according to a San Jose Police Department detective’s statement. A sandal visible in one clip matched the sandals Baby was wearing when she was arrested around noon.
Police further connected Baby to the killing by analyzing a blood stain on her pants, which came back as overwhelmingly likely having come from the victim, authorities said. They also found surveillance footage showing Baby’s car was in the area that morning, according to the police statement. Baby’s cellphone location data, meanwhile, showed she had been in the victim’s house that morning, police said.
Baby was arraigned Thursday and ordered held without bail. Her next court date is Nov. 17.