Updated - One Dead In Milton Double Stabbing

by Jason Wright / Appen Newspapers

September 04, 2008 MILTON -- A mother is dead, her boyfriend is in critical condition and a child is severely traumatized after a slaying and suicide attempt Sept. 4 at the North Park Estates apartments on Deerfield Parkway. Authorities said the double stabbing started as a domestic argument.Marianela Smith, 33, of North Park Lane was found dead shortly after midnight outside her ground level apartment in the breezeway of the 1000 building, said Lt. Shawn McCarty of the Milton Police Department. She had stab wounds to the chest and defensive wounds to the arms, he said. Her boyfriend and alleged attacker, Ramero Furman, 25, is under arrest and in police custody at North Fulton Regional Hospital, where he was taken once police arrived. He is in critical condition with self-inflicted stab wounds to his wrists and throat, said McCarty. The officer said Smith's 5-year-old son was at the scene and is in protective custody awaiting the arrival of his father, who lives in Tennessee. The boy was not injured in the attack, but taken to the hospital for evaluations before being turned over to the Department of Family and Child Services.

Police have yet to interview him "due to his state at the time," said McCarty.
"He saw a large portion of it," he said. "Obviously he was pretty shaken up by the whole thing."McCarty said a neighbor called Milton police five minutes after midnight to report he could hear people arguing outside an apartment in the complex. Another neighbor called back a few minutes later to report he'd seen people fighting, said McCarty.By the time Milton police arrived on scene at 12:11 a.m., Smith was dead.She had tried to call 911, but her cell phone could not connect.

McCarty said investigators do not know if the call was interrupted or if reception was bad in the building. A single knife was found on scene, said McCarty, and Smith's apartment showed signs of a struggle. He said it did not appear the two lived together in the gated community. McCarty said Milton police have not been called to the residence before for domestic problems and neither had a previous record to his knowledge.This is the first homicide in Milton since late October 2007, when two men were found dead inside a home on Harmony Court in Avensong. Their alleged shooter, Allan Hall, 27, of Buffalo, N.Y., was arrested for the crime Nov. 1.Milton has had four homicides since incorporation, all near the vicinity of Deerfield Parkway.