A California man and his 22-year-old daughter have been stabbed to death by a homeless man while they were working on their car outside a Kohl’s, police said.
Ken Evans, 54, and McKenna Evans were spending time together around noon Thursday tinkering on their sedan in Palmdale, just north of Los Angeles, when the man attacked them for no apparent reason, the LA Times reported.
Ken was rushed to a hospital, where he died, while his daughter was pronounced dead at the scene.
LA County sheriff’s deputies have arrested a suspect, who they said may be a transient, the newspaper reported.
Elizabeth Evans, the victims’ devastated wife and mother, mourned the shocking loss.
Ken Evans, 54, and his 22-year-old daughter, McKenna Evans, were fatally stabbed outside a Kohl’s in California. Facebook / Ken Evans
A man believed to be transient was arrested for allegedly stabbing Ken Evans, 54, and his daughter, McKenna Evans, 22, to death in Palmdale, California. KTLA“She wasn’t just my daughter, she was my best friend,” the mom said Sunday about McKenna. “She was just full of joy, and she cared for both people and animals.”
She told KTLA: “She was an absolute beacon … She didn’t know a stranger. Everybody became her best friend.”
McKenna Evans, 22, was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. Facebook / McKenna Evans
McKenna had been waiting to take her aesthetician exam when she was killed. Facebook / McKenna Evans
Ken Evans, 54, was spending time with his daughter before planning to move to Missouri. Facebook / Ken EvansElizabeth said her husband was a “doting father” who “loved spending as much time as he could with his daughter.”
Jesse Mercado, McKenna’s boyfriend, told KTLA that he ran to the scene after the shocking crime.
“I wanted to hold her again. It was hard to know that the person who changed my life so drastically — in just one day was taken,” he told the outlet.
He described McKenna as a kind, caring and ambitious young woman.
“The first time I met her was at work,” Jesse told KTLA. “The moment she presented herself was the day I fell in love with her.”
The two met at an ice cream shop where they both worked and had been dating since February, the LA Times reported.
McKenna, who had been waiting to take her aesthetician exam, preferred vegan products that were not tested on animals, her mom said, “because she paid attention to kindness and comfort.”
Elizabeth said her husband had been planning to move to Missouri and had been trying to spend more quality time with his youngest child before leaving.
“That was Ken — a risk-taker, always adventurous,” she told the paper.
The couple met in Kansas before returning to her native California, where Ken worked in construction and real estate, she said.
A GoFundMe campaign for the family has raised over $15,000 of its $20,000 goal.
Their deaths come as recent crime statistics show several major US cities, including Los Angeles, are on track to surpass last year’s already shocking rates of violent crime. Over the past year, the number of homicides in the city has spiked by 7%.
