Six minutes of terror that ended with a toddler useless outdoors store

Julian Wood spent the last moments of his life playing in his mother’s shopping cart as they went on a Monday afternoon grocery run.

Then a woman walked towards them at the crowded Giant Eagle in North Olmstead, Cleveland, holding a kitchen knife in her right hand.

The three-year-old boy’s mom Margot, 38, wheeled them past, but the woman stopped dead in her tracks, turned around, and followed them.

Less than six minutes later, Julian was bleeding to death on the parking lot asphalt as a badly wounded Margot pleaded with paramedics: ‘don’t worry about me’.

As first responders desperately gave the little boy CPR, his alleged murderer, Bionca Ellis, 32, was arrested a short walk away – still holding the bloodied knife.

Much of those minutes of terror from 2.58 to 3.04pm on June 2, and the chilling scenes that came before and after, were laid bare in newly released surveillance footage and police bodycam.

Ellis bought a knife earlier that day from a nearby Volunteers of America Thrift Store, and was caught on camera pacing back and forth in front of Giant Eagle.

At 2.58pm she headed inside, brandishing it as if it was a half-eaten chocolate bar, walking straight ahead and forcing Margot to swerve around her.

Barely as they passed, she immediately stopped, turned around, and followed – her sinister stalking documented from four camera angles.

Twenty-five seconds passed before Ellis emerged from a blind spot alone, and loitered awkwardly near the doors for them to catch up.

As they turned for the exit, Ellis waited for them to pass her, and was filmed on two more cameras following them outside.

Margot wheeled Julian to their red hatchback in the busy car park and popped the trunk to load the groceries inside.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Ellis allegedly unleashed her vicious attack on a mother and child she never met, and for no reason police can discern.

The 911 calls came in bunches, as horrified shoppers and staff on their break had no chance to stop the frenzied stabbing.

‘There’s a child, he’s bleeding all over the place… they’re giving him CPR,’ one caller relayed, her voice strained with panic.

Witnesses barely 15 minutes later described the attack to police at the scene, just after Julian and her mom were rushed to St John Medical Center

‘I hear a scream, I look back, and she’s just stabbing,’ one said.

Another, a heroic man in a red shirt, described how Ellis walked up to them and ‘just stabbed’, showing a downwards overhand stabbing motion with his own hand.

‘All I heard was just screaming and the lady grabbed her towel from the bottom of the cart and that’s when it fell over and they collapsed over here,’ he said.

‘And [the attacker] just walked off.’

The cop he was talking to put a sympathetic hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘This is not OK for anyone to see,’ he said.

Shoppers dropped what they were doing and ran from every direction, the witness said, as he watched the attacker ‘trying to get away’ and decided she wouldn’t.

The man got in his car and followed, calling 911 as he drove to report her every move.

Just a few minutes later at 3.04pm, police cornered Ellis in a side street, guns drawn, and made her lie down on the road.

As they slapped handcuffs on her, one officer pointed out a knife lying on the grass inches away.

While these cops were hauling Ellis away, their colleagues were trying to save her alleged victims from bleeding to death.

The scene is a chaos of yelling and desperation as police surround the stricken duo until an ambulance arrives at 3.06pm.

Cops made way for paramedics who hoisted Julian on to a stretcher and began CPR, his life draining away from wounds to his back and cheek.

‘Don’t worry about me,’ Margot cried in anguish to others trying to staunch her own bleeding.

By 3.09pm, Julian was loaded into the back of an ambulance as paramedics shouted to their colleagues ‘there’s no pulse’.

At that moment, Julian’s father Jake Wood arrived at the scene frantically asking where his son was.

‘My son! My son is he OK?’ he asked anyone who would listen. 

He had abandoned his pickup truck with the keys still in the ignition and sprinted across the car park.

Police grabbed his keys and got someone to drive him to hospital in the ambulance’s slipstream.

Heartbreaking photos of the scene showed groceries scattered across the parking lot’s asphalt where the mother and son were attacked.

Margot was taken to the same hospital and her wounds were not life-threatening, but Julian took too many blows and didn’t survive.

Why Ellis allegedly attacked them with such ferocity for seemingly no good reason has North Olmsted Police stumped, horrified, and frustrated.

‘There’s no indication as to why she committed this. She wouldn’t speak about anything, she lawyered up,’ Detective Sergeant Matthew Beck said.

Ellis was charged with aggravated murder and spent her entire arraignment in Rocky River Municipal Court on Tuesday with her head slumped on the table.

Her public defender said Ellis refused to skip the pretrial hearing, now set for Monday, and was held on a $1 million bond.

Police said she could face more charges when the case is presented to a Cuyahoga County Grand Jury. 

Beck said though Ellis had no violent history, this was not her first encounter with the law that week.

Just four days earlier on My 29, police bodycam showed a patrol car pull up alongside her after a passerby said she looked like she may need help.

She was trundling to the bus stop in a wheelchair, and told the policewoman ‘I kinda get lightheaded from my medicine’ and her phone was dead.

After running her details, the officers discovered there was a warrant for her arrest and bundled her into the car.

‘I’m getting a free ride!’ Ellis said, excitedly.

Beck explained Ellis was charged with shoplifting from a Walmart last May and pleaded guilty to the lesser crime of unauthorized use of property.

Ellis escaped with six months’ probation, but failed to do the required theft education program and an arrest warrant was issued.

‘She was found to have that warrant, so she was taken into custody and then she, upon her release last week, came back [Monday] morning inquiring about some property of hers,’ Beck said.

Soon after her visit to the police station, Ellis allegedly acquired some new property – the kitchen knife now sitting in evidence.

The only other items on her rap sheet were half a dozen traffic violations and a a month in jail for trespassing in Florida.

Court documents revealed she booked a hotel room in Kissimmee in March, and refused to leave when the clerk found she didn’t have the money to pay.

Beck said there was no history of mental illness, but after her vicious and unexplained alleged crime, he wasn’t so sure that was accurate.

‘There is some mental health concerns that we have, but nothing concrete at this point,’ he said, calling the attack an ‘entirely a random act of violence’.

Ellis’ social media pages give little indication about motive, either, mostly consisting of memes and her bio reading ‘I’m the Queen simple worship Me’.

Julian’s family is raising money for Jared as he tries to pay for his son’s funeral, legal bills, and his wife’s recovery.

‘Our family is overwhelmed with sadness,’ they wrote in a collective statement.  

‘We have no explanation as to how or why this happened, it was a random act of violence. There was no prior altercation, they did not know each other… this was a malicious random act.

‘She has devastated our family beyond words, she took something from us we can never get back.’

Julian’s family said they were overwhelmed by the support they received from friends and strangers at the start of a ‘long journey to recovery’.

‘We will continue to share stories about our beautiful baby boy, his laugh, his cheesy smile, his rambunctious attitude, his love of dinosaurs, his love of school,’ they wrote.

‘His obsession with his new baby sister and wrestling his big brother every chance he gets… and all the other beautiful things about that sweet little boy.’

Julian was born in November 2020 when his parents posted adorable photos of him as a newborn being cradled in his older brother’s arms. 

The family said they hoped to received ‘some sort of justice’.

Giant Eagle said it was providing counseling to its workers.

‘We were heartbroken to learn of the passing of the young victim in yesterday’s senseless act of violence,’ it said.

‘Our thoughts are with the child, his mother and their loved ones during this unimaginably difficult time.’

The same Giant Eagle was the scene of a murder-suicide on June 25 last year.

Bernard Smith shot dead his ex-wife Susan Petterson, 63, as she worked at the store before turning the gun on himself, two decades after they divorced in 2004.