Jury finds woman guilty in the fatal stabbing of 3-year-old outside a Cleveland-area supermarket

CLEVELAND (AP) — A jury has found an Ohio woman guilty in the fatal stabbing of a 3-year-old boy as he sat in a grocery cart outside a supermarket in suburban Cleveland.

Bionca Ellis, 34, of Cleveland, will be sentenced Oct. 27 by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge John Russo, who can choose between life in prison with or without the opportunity for parole. She has been held in jail on a $5 million bond since being indicted by a grand jury last year.

Ellis was found guilty Wednesday — after a weeklong trial — on nine criminal counts, including aggravated murder, felonious assault, child endangering and aggravated theft, for the June 3, 2024, attack that killed Julian Wood and left his mother injured, according to Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael C. O’Malley’s office.

Authorities said Ellis entered the Giant Eagle grocery store in North Olmsted armed with two knives that she had stolen from the Volunteers of America Thrift Store next door. They said she spotted Julian and his mother, Margot Wood, near the front and followed them into the parking lot.

The mother was about to load her groceries into her vehicle when Ellis ran at them with a knife, stabbing the toddler twice, in an attack that took less than five seconds, before walking away. The boy died at a hospital while Margot Wood was treated for a stab wound to her shoulder. Prosecutors said she suffered that injury as she tried to pull the boy out of the cart during the attack.

Ellis’ defense attorneys had entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Margot Wood and Jared Wood, the toddler’s father, delivered a statement to reporters after the verdict thanking the community for its support.

“Everybody that’s visited him, commented, sent love, we appreciate you guys so much,” Margot Wood said. “This was for him today.”