The Chilling Six Seconds Before A Great-Grandmother Was Butchered On A Train

A 25-year-old Georgia man could face execution after being charged with a horrific crime aboard an Atlanta transit train.

The suspect allegedly slashed a beloved great-grandmother’s throat and stabbed her up to 20 times in a completely unprovoked transit nightmare.

John Elijah Matthews, a 25-year-old vagrant with no address and no phone, is now facing heavy-duty federal charges that could put him on federal death row for the alleged gruesome, broad-daylight execution of 66-year-old Margaret Swan, prosecutors announced.

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The bloodbath unfolded on May 30 around 11:25 a.m. aboard a northbound MARTA train. Surveillance footage captured the chilling countdown as the horror unfolded. Swan, described by authorities as a “phenomenal mom” and the “rock” of her family, boarded Train Car 134 and sat completely alone, minding her own business, according to the Fulton County arrest warrant affidavit.

Minutes later, Matthews stepped into the train car wearing glasses, an orange T-shirt, and black slides. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t know her, and she didn’t know him.

But video shows Matthews stalking over to the innocent senior, standing just inches away. At 11:25:26 a.m., he reached into his pocket, pulled out a folding knife, and flicked it open.

Six seconds later, total horror.

Matthews grabbed Swan by the head and cut her throat with his right hand, according to the chilling arrest affidavit. The terrified great-grandmother screamed, desperately trying to fight her way out of the seat. But the attacker held her down by the arm, raining down a flurry of 18 to 20 savage stabs into her chest and neck as she frantically tried to defend herself.

As other passengers fled the car in a panic, the affidavit describes Matthews throwing Swan’s mangled body to the floor. He stood over her bleeding body for nearly two agonizing minutes until the train finally screeched into the Oakland City Station.

Matthews allegedly stepped off the train with the bloody knife still in his hand. But his escape was cut short when a transit cop, alerted by terrified, screaming commuters pointing at Matthews, cornered him on the platform. After a brief standoff, cops detained Matthews and placed him in cuffs.

Emergency workers rushed to save Swan, but she was pronounced dead at the scene.

Now, the feds are stepping in. U.S. Attorney Theodore Hertzberg slammed the killing as an “unprovoked act of senseless violence,” and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche will personally decide if the government will seek the death penalty.

Meanwhile, Swan’s devastated family is furious, tearing into the “weak, pathetic coward” who stole their matriarch and demanding to know why transit cops aren’t doing more to protect women on the increasingly dangerous, crime-ridden train system. The incident was the second homicide around the Oakland City station in the last two months.

“You took away our rock; you took away a gem,” Swan’s heartbroken daughter, Shanae Sams, said.

“She was a phenomenal mom. Just for him to do that, it’s unforgivable. I don’t forgive him, I will never forgive him ever,” another daughter, Tiara, said.