Officials Still Can't Identify Tewksbury Stabbing Suspect

TEWKSBURY, MA — Middlesex County prosecutors still have not been able to identify the man accused of stabbing a Tewksbury woman 18 times with a beer bottle in March. Tewksbury police arrested the man but then determined the name he gave — Jose Hernandez, of Lawrence — was not his true identity. Now identified as John Doe in court records, he has been held without bail and due back in court for a hearing Sept. 12.

Police on the morning of March 25 were called to the Tewksbury Funeral Home, where the man's ex-girlfriend lived in an apartment on the upper floor of the business. Prosecutors said the man showed up the previous night and forced the woman to sleep next to him. He threatened to kill her with a steak knife, prosecutors said.

The next morning the woman tried to escape, prosecutors said. Doe caught up with her on the porch of the funeral home, according to court records, and smashed a beer bottle on her head. The bottle broke, and he repeatedly stabbed her in the back, neck, arms, chest, and torso while yelling he was going to kill her.

After a neighbor called 911, police found the man in the bedroom of the apartment drinking a beer, his hand covered in blood, prosecutors said. During a search of the apartment, police found what was believed to be cocaine. The victim sustained 18 stab wounds and her injuries were described as permanently disfiguring by a plastic surgeon consulting on the case.

Doe was charged with armed assault with intent to murder, assault with a dangerous weapon, mayhem, aggravated assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, kidnapping, intimidating a witness, impeding a police investigation, possessing/using a false RMV document, identity fraud, furnishing a false ID to law enforcement, and assault and battery on a family/household member.