Husband of stabbed tot, mom to appear in court

A MAN ACCUSED of stabbing his wife and toddler daughter in West Oak Lane will appear in front of a judge today in Maryland, police said yesterday.

Stephen Burton, 41, was arrested late Sunday in Maryland, where he fled after allegedly assaulting Danecia Berrian, 37, and their 21-month-old daughter, Desiree, inside their rowhouse at Dallas and Georgian roads.

Burton will be charged as a fugitive from justice in Maryland, police said last night. After his arraignment, he will be returned to Philadelphia.

Both Berrian and her daughter remained in critical condition last night - the mother at Einstein Medical Center and the daughter at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, police said.

Neighbors told the Daily News on Sunday that Burton savagely attacked his wife and daughter with a knife in the heat of a domestic argument.

He allegedly stabbed his wife several times throughout her body and stabbed Desiree once in her chest.

Berrian graduated from Temple University in 2011. She's a fourth-grade teacher at Jay Cooke Elementary School in the city's Logan section.

A 54-year-old man was found dead in a secluded, wooded area in West Philadelphia last night, police said.

Officers found the man unresponsive about 8:14 p.m. on Catharine Street near the Cobbs Creek Parkway. Medics pronounced him dead at the scene about a half-hour later.

The cause of his death was unclear last night, police said, but investigators were handling it as a suspicious death pending an autopsy by the city Medical Examiner.