4 teens arrested in brutal carjacking that severed elderly woman’s arm, killed her

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE/Gray News) – Four teenagers have been arrested in connection to a gruesome carjacking that severed an elderly woman’s arm. She died from her injuries a short time later.

New Orleans police said Linda Frickey, 73, was killed Monday afternoon in the crime that has left neighbors traumatized.

Police said four teenagers carjacked Frickey and dragged her outside the vehicle for more than a block while she was entangled in her seat belt’s strap. Her arm was detached from her body, and neighbors who ran to help said she died in front of them.

“It was dragging a lady by the seatbelt outside the car. The door had closed on the seatbelt, and she was stuck in it … I got out of my vehicle screaming ‘please stop,’ other neighbors were also screaming,” neighbor Todd Ecker said.

Another neighbor, Leanne Mascar, said she ran to help Frickey and was hoping to get her loose from the car.

“I just started running for her, I thought if I could somehow, I don’t know what I could do, but I thought if I could dislodge her from this car … when I looked down her body was already there, and her arm was ... It’s just not something you expect to see,” Mascar said.

Mascar said through tears and screams, she ran to get a sheet from her home to cover Frickey.

“She was laying there naked, and I thought the indignity she just suffered was already too much,” said Mascar.

By this point, anyone within earshot rendered what aid they could, including Leanne Mascar’s husband Mark Mascar.

“Just to sit beside a woman who’s a mother or grandmother and watch her fade away, as my wife said, we were praying. I was angry, I was telling her to hang in there because every time I heard a siren I was hoping and praying it was the ambulance. I kept telling her to hang in there, breathing, her eyes were moving. I’ve never seen something so horrific,” Mark Mascar said.

Frickey’s car was recovered about a mile away, but the suspects had fled.

Police released images from nearby surveillance cameras of the four people believed to be responsible for the brutal attack. After those images were disseminated by news media Monday afternoon, one 15-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy were both turned into police by their parents.

“This was an incredibly difficult decision, on the behalf of these parents, and I want to commend them for doing the right thing,” New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said at a news conference.

A 16-year-old girl and a second 15-year-old girl were also arrested.

Ferguson said all four teens are facing second-degree murder charges, and he plans to personally ask Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams to prosecute the suspects in adult court, where they could face life sentences with the possibility of parole after 25 years.

“I would say absolutely I will ask they be charged as adults,” Ferguson said. “I mean, look at the nature of the crime. Brazenness. Broad daylight. No regard for this woman hanging outside the car ... At some point, we have to hold people accountable.”

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