ROSEDALE, Md. — 21-year-old Cody Mulligan had looked death in the eye suffering from batten disease, a rare nervous system disorder, and was overcoming the challenge of being legally blind from it, when his life was cut short.
“He never even knew Cody. Cody did not deserve any of this,” his mother told us.
Cody headed out of his house on Saturday afternoon on Sumter Avenue in Rosedale walking towards his cousin, who was waiting in a car outside, when police say a neighbor out walking his dog, 47-year-old James Marchsteiner III, attacked him for no apparent reason.
“The suspect had a knife. He ran right up to the victim, just began stabbing him. There was no altercation that preceded it,” said Officer Jennifer Peach of the Baltimore County Police Department.
Cody died four days later.
According to charging documents, Marchsteiner’s mother told police he is schizophrenic and had been in the house earlier on the day of the attack talking about “God and his Senders”, but Cody’s friends and family point to other problems.
“This guy has suffered from drug problems his whole life and he’s been able to be a menace to this street,” one woman, who did not wish to be identified, told us.
The family claims after police arrived, the suspect shouted that he’d attacked Cody, because he was blind to put him out of his misery.
The victim’s friends have now posted CODY STRONG signs and throughout the neighborhood since he routinely worked out at a nearby gym and had just gotten his license to become a personal trainer.
“He was really trying to do more good and help other people in this world and he was taken from us,” said his mother.
Supporters have set up a GoFundMe account called HELPING #CODYSTRONG to help out his family with expenses associated with his untimely death.
