Ridley woman was victim of 'horrific homicide'

Every day, "like clockwork," 81-year-old Marie Ott was picked up at her Ridley Township house by a van that took her to a nursing home, where she visited with her sick son, neighbors said.

But when the van came Monday, Ott wasn't there and the house in which she had lived for 20 years, where she baked pineapple upside-down cakes for her neighbors and welcomed strangers into her kitchen, was covered in police tape.

In what authorities are calling a "horrific homicide," Ott was strangled, stabbed and suffocated in a second-floor bedroom of her home on Crum Creek Drive near Harfman Sunday night, Ridley Township Detective Sgt. Scott Willoughby said.

Her body was found Monday morning by one of her children, who went to check on her when she didn't answer the phone, according to police.

Ott, who had diabetes and required a motorized scooter to get around, didn't stand a chance against her attacker.

Police said that Ott's killer bound her hands behind her back and strangled her with a rope or cord. The killer also stabbed her five times and put a convenience-store plastic bag over her head in a final attempt to starve her of oxygen, Willoughby said.

He said that there was little blood around Ott's body, but a large amount of it in the plastic bag over her head. He said that Ott may have been coughing up blood from a stab wound to her lung.

Police were still searching last night for the killer and a murder weapon. They continue to conduct tests at the crime scene.

Willoughby said the killer could have been a stranger who entered the house through a broken window or could have been an acquaintance.

"I would assume she knew her attacker. This wouldn't be a random act of violence where someone picked her home," he said.

The killer took money from Ott's purse, but the cash was "basically all that's missing from the house," Willoughby said.

Sally Foglio, a neighbor of Ott's who shared stories, cakes and smoke breaks with her, said she couldn't imagine someone murdering a woman neighbors fondly called "Miss Marie."

"She didn't have an enemy in the world. Why did she have to go through this?" Foglio said.

"You try to do what's right and she did. She just had too much trust.

"It's always the good ones." *