Stabbing suspect arrested in ‘vicious’ BART killing in Oakland

Two people hold a wanted poster for John Lee Cowell during a prayer circle at a vigil in memory of stabbing victim Nia Wilson at McArthur BART Station in Oakland, Calif. on Monday, July 23, 2018. Two people hold a wanted poster for John Lee Cowell during a prayer circle at a vigil in memory of stabbing victim Nia Wilson at McArthur BART Station in Oakland, Calif. on Monday, July 23, 2018. Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 30 Caption Close Stabbing suspect arrested in ‘vicious’ BART killing in Oakland 1 / 30 Back to Gallery

A BART passenger’s tip ended a daylong police manhunt for the violent felon suspected of fatally stabbing a BART passenger and injuring her sister in a sudden, unprovoked attack on the MacArthur Station platform in Oakland.

Nia Wilson, 18, died on the platform Sunday night after a man identified as 27-year-old transient John Lee Cowell approached and quickly stabbed her and Lahtifa Wilson, 26, both in the neck, police said. The older sister was hospitalized overnight.

“In my close to 30 years of police experience, it was probably one of the most vicious attacks that I’ve seen,” BART Police Chief Carlos Rojas said at a news conference Monday.

For Cowell, 21 hours on the lam ended almost exactly where they began: He was located on another BART train about 6:30 p.m. Monday, after at least two passengers tipped off police that they had spotted the suspected killer.

Rojas told reporters that about 5:45 p.m., officers received a phone call from a rider who believed the suspect was on a Richmond-bound train, traveling from Coliseum Station. Officers fanned out across the area Monday evening about 10 minutes after the initial phone call, but initially weren’t able to locate the suspect, Rojas said.

About that time, another rider told police that the suspect might have jumped onto an Antioch-bound train. Police intercepted that train at Pleasant Hill, and two BART officers located Cowell after searching the train.

Rojas said investigators will interview Cowell soon, but to date still have no details on a potential motive for the crime. At an earlier press conference, Rojas said there was no evidence to support suggestions that the crime was race-related, but police haven’t taken the possibility off the table. Cowell is white and the Wilsons are African American.

When asked how Cowell was able to slip away from police Sunday evening, Rojas described a prison-type attack, where Cowell surprised his victims from behind in rapid succession and fled.

“It basically happened at the snap of the fingers, at the drop of the pin … that quick,” he said. “The officers were at the station, and as soon as they were notified, they reacted.”

Rojas said Cowell wasn’t armed when police approached him, and that Cowell was truthful when officers asked for his name and provided them with a California identification card.

“It was a very uneventful type of contact,” Rojas said Monday evening.

Rojas said BART video cameras captured images of the stabbing at around 9:45 p.m. Sunday and the assailant as he fled the platform and entered a BART parking lot, where he changed his clothes. He said police later recovered the knife in a construction lot.

Lahtifa Wilson described the night in an interview with ABC-7 News.

She and two sisters were on their way home from a family function, listening to music on a train and keeping to themselves. They stepped off their train at MacArthur and were just about to transfer to another train. One sister got on board and the other two waited as a woman with a child in a stroller exited the train. That’s when they were “blindsided by a maniac.”

“For what? I don’t know why,” she said, standing with a bandage on the right side of her neck. “And I looked back, and he was wiping off his knife and stood at the stairs and just looked — and from there on, I was just caring for my sister. I was in shock. ... I didn’t know I was cut because I was paying more attention to my sister. But he just stood there, like it was nothing.”

She said her sister called out for her: “She just yelled my name — ‘Tifa, Tifa, Tifa’ — and I said, ‘I got you, baby, I got you.’”

“He didn’t know us; we didn’t know him,” Wilson said.

Hundreds of people gathered for a vigil Monday evening at MacArthur BART Station, bringing flowers, candles and incense. Some held signs demanding justice for the two sisters.

Solena Sampson squeezed her 16-year-old daughter as she paid her respects. Sampson said she didn’t know Wilson or her family, but as a mother knew the fear of having a child who didn’t come home.

“It could have been anybody’s daughter,” she said.

By early evening, the event evolved into a protest of sorts, with attendees decrying the violence against the Wilson sisters and other youth in Oakland.

Daryle Allums, Nia Wilson’s godfather and leader of Oakland’s Stop Killing Our Kids group, said Wilson’s death had shaken up the whole town.

He addressed concerns that the attack might be racially motivated. He urged the African American community to “stand down right now” and avoid jumping to conclusions.

“We don’t know if this was racist,” Allums said. “Let’s get this information to find out what really happened. Let’s find out the right facts to then be able to deal with this situation.”

In May 2016, Cowell was convicted of felony second-degree robbery, according to court records. That year, a Kaiser hospital in Richmond obtained a restraining order against him after he allegedly repeatedly harassed and threatened staff members with physical harm.

Cowell was homeless and would often show up in the emergency department and make “rather specific” threats, said Jason Curliano, an attorney who represents the hospital.

A separate restraining order was filed against Cowell in 2015, but the circumstances were not immediately available.

Cowell was previously convicted of battery in June 2013, and of being under the influence of a controlled substance in March 2016. Both those incidents happened in Walnut Creek.

He also had several misdemeanor infractions of vandalism, petty theft and possession of a controlled substance on his record, according to Alameda County court records.

The slaying of Nia Wilson was the third possible homicide connected to BART in just five days.

A witness to the aftermath of Wilson’s stabbing, Nicole Mikels, said she was on the train at MacArthur Station that the sisters had just exited and heard “horrifying screams.”

The sounds came from the direction of two young women Mikels had noticed when she boarded the train a few minutes earlier at Rockridge Station.

One sister was “screaming for help,” Mikels said. “Her sister was bleeding profusely by the neck — her entire torso was covered in blood.”

Two BART police officers were at the station when the attack happened and performed CPR on the younger sister, Mikels said. She said she and other passengers tried to to calm the older sister by massaging her legs and giving her water.

“She said everything happened so fast,” Mikels said. That “it was a white male that had slit her sister’s throat.”

In a statement, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said there was no known motive for the crime.

“The senseless and violent stabbing of two young women on a BART train platform last night has shaken our community,” she said.

Schaaf said BART was the lead agency conducting the investigation, and that the Oakland Police Department has been in “constant contact” and providing support.

“We all mourn in this moment and we will all work together to bring justice for Nia, her sister and their family,” Schaaf said.

Ebony Monroe, a cousin of the victims, called Nia Wilson a “beautiful, sweet person” who loved her cousins, fashion and doing makeup. Monroe said the 18-year-old had a boyfriend who drowned in a lake two years ago, and that she was celebrating his birthday on Sunday.

“She needs her justice. ... She was just an innocent kid, and she didn’t deserve this.” Monroe said. “And he did this for no reason.”

Wilson’s family set up a GoFundMe page with a goal of raising $9,000. As of print deadline Monday, more than $17,000 had been raised.

Megan Cassidy, Michael Cabanatuan and Sarah Ravani are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com, mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com, sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy @ctuan @SarRavani