Woman stabs her roommate to death with butcher knife


Police say she stabbed her roommate to death with a butcher knife. Now a Detroit woman is charged with first-degree murder.

Investigators say 45-year-old Needra  Anderson has been charged with First Degree Premeditated Murder in connection with the fatal stabbing of April Smith, 23.

Detroit police say it started as an altercation between the two roommates at the Chalmers Apartments complex, north of I-94 Wednesday evening.

Just before 8 p.m. police were called to the complex and discovered Smith on a bedroom floor, stabbed multiple times

"I went to the gas station, I come back and she was pacing in the door with a knife in her hand," said neighbor Andre Horton.

Horton says he had just met the victim and never imagined anything like this happening.

"April Smith. I had just met her yesterday and she was very kind, she was nice," Horton said. "I didn't think anything like that would happen to her."

Officials say Smith was Anderson's live-in domestic partner. Anderson is scheduled to be arraigned Friday.

Neighbors say they just moved to the apartment complex earlier this month. And right before the stabbing took place, the two women were outside getting to know their neighbors.

"We were sitting out there talking and laughing and then all of the sudden this incident went on," said a neighbor who did not want to be identified.