A black woman arrested in the daytime stabbing deaths of two Canadian tourists near an Atlantic City casino laughed, frowned, grimaced and repeatedly asked where her lawyer was as she was charged with murdering the women, one of them 80 years old

Antoinette Pelzer stabbed the women as they were walking in an area where most of the city’s casinos have their entrances and parking garages, authorities said. Pelzer’s aunt said that she has long suffered from mental illness. Superior Court Judge Michael Donio read from a criminal complaint that said Pelzer, 44, stabbed the 80-year-old woman and tried to steal her pocketbook. "When the victim would not relinquish, the suspect stabbed her additional times," he said, reading from the complaint. The judge said that the older woman was stabbed in different parts of her body with a 12-inch butcher knife, and that the younger woman, 47, was stabbed in her lower body, hands and shoulder when she tried to help. Autopsies showed that the older woman died from being knifed in the heart, while the 47-year-old woman bled to death.