80-Year-Old Victim of Stabbing Spree Remembered as Faithful and Kind

— -- The friends and family of Patricia Slavin, an 80-year-old Massachusetts woman who was one of two people killed during a brutal stabbing rampage last week, spoke out for the first time, describing her as a woman of strong faith and generosity.

"She was a profile in courage," said Merle Coughlin, a friend of the victim. "Her faith and trust -- truly an incredible woman."

Slavin was murdered in a chaotic stabbing spree allegedly perpetrated by 28-year-old suspect Arthur DaRosa in his hometown of Taunton, Massachusetts, roughly 40 miles South of Boston, at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

DaRosa's violent eruption began when he crashed his Honda on a residential street, and then began to run around the neighborhood attempting to break into homes, before reaching Slavin's property, police said. Inside, he allegedly murdered the octogenarian widow and assaulted her daughter, Kathleen Slavin, who was sent to Brigham's Women's Hospital in Boston and quickly administered into intensive care. No new information on Kathleen Slavin's status could be provided by the hospital.

Onlookers described the scene at the Slavin residence as "chaos" at the time of the stabbings.

Following the attack, DaRosa allegedly ran out onto the street and began knocking on car windows in an attempt to hijack a ride. When he failed, he returned to his damaged Honda, and sped away to the direction of a nearby shopping mall, police said. There, he crashed his car into the glass doors of a Macy's and continued his spree in Bertucci's, an Italian chain restaurant, before being gunned down by James Creed, a 35-year-old off-duty cop who happened to be dining there at that time, police said.

In total, DaRosa stabbed six people, killing two, including Slavin, police said.

Slavin, a retired nurse and a devout Catholic, was memorialized by friends and family in the place where she spent many of her Sundays, Holy Family Parish church in East Taunton. They remembered her as a generous, optimistic and devout woman, the kind of person who would have let DaRosa into her home to help him without fearing danger.

"I could never imagine her not opening the door, because she cared about everyone," Coughlin said of her slain friend.

A wake for Slavin is scheduled for Tuesday at Holy Family Parish church, and a funeral mass will be held there Wednesday.

The other fatality was a 56-year-old man who was eating dinner with his family at the Italian restaurant when he tried to intervene before DaRosa stabbed him, police sources told ABC News.

The male victim has since been identified as George Heath, one of the visual design instructors at the Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School, according to the school's superintendent-director James O'Brien.

"Mr. Heath was a tremendous educator with a great passion for teaching; he was influential in sparking creativity and a love of learning in all of his students," O'Brien said in a statement.