Riverside police received several calls about a woman suffering from knife wounds on Golden Avenue in the city’s La Sierra neighborhood.
The woman, Ke Chieh Meng, 64, of Riverside, was bleeding in the abdomen area and was taken to a local hospital, police said. She died from her injuries.
Shortly after the attack, police began receiving calls from neighbors in the area reporting “a transient woman walking through her backyards and looking suspicious,” Riverside police said.
Police officers who answered the calls detained the woman safely, identified as Darlene Stephanie Montoya, 23, of Monterey Park, Los Angeles County, police said.
“When our detectives interviewed the suspect, they found nothing to suggest that she attacked the victim because of her race,” said Riverside Police spokesman Officer Ryan Railsback.
Police said Meng was walking his two puppies down Golden Avenue on Saturday morning when he was randomly confronted, attacked and stabbed by Montoya, who fled the scene.
Montoya was arrested at the Robert Presley Detention Center on suspicion of murder, violation of weapons and being under the influence of an illegal substance. She is being held without bail.
Police say Montoya was previously arrested by Riverside police on March 30 after she attacked a woman with a skateboard near a shopping mall on Freeway Viaduct 91.
Police officers arrested and registered Montoya in prison for assault with a deadly weapon, but she was released shortly thereafter by a “turnout” quote due to the current emergency bail schedule in effect in Riverside during the Covid-19 pandemic.