EASTON, Md. — Flowers were placed in front of the YMCA in Easton Friday, one day after 72-year-old John Cassidy lost his life there.
Police say Andre Jefferson stabbed Cassidy inside the men’s locker room at the YMCA, shortly before 8 a.m.
When police arrived, they found Jefferson in the lobby.
According to Talbot County Sheriff Joe Gamble, he seemed partially unresponsive and appeared to be suffering from some medical or mental illness.
Gamble said police were then led to the locker room where they found Cassidy, “suffering obvious wounds, later to be confirmed multiple laceration wounds laying on the floor.”
Both men were taken to the hospital. Cassidy didn’t make it and later died.
Investigators still aren’t sure why Jefferson attacked Cassidy, but they think it was an attempted robbery.
Easton Middle School is directly across from the YMCA, and because of the actions of some alert adults and the School Resource Officer, a potentially even more deadly situation was avoided.
Just minutes before the attack, Jefferson walked into the middle school. Students had not arrived yet. An administrator and a school security officer confronted the man, and they ,along with a Talbot County Resource officer, escorted him outside and contacted Easton Police.
“So we had officers that were in route or in the vicinity to keep an eye out to locate this individual.”
Police can't say what may have happened if children were in school at the time, but, Gamble says the administrators and school security officers handled the situation as designed to protect students and teachers.
Police say Jefferson caused all this damage with just a normal fold up three-inch pocket knife. He is out of the hospital and being held on no bond, pending a June 10 hearing.
