2001 Red Lion machete attack

On February 2, 2001, a machete attack took place at North Hopewell-Winterstown Elementary School in Red Lion, Pennsylvania. The perpetrator, 55-year-old William Michael Stankewicz, stabbed several students and school faculty, injuring 11 kindergarteners, two teachers, and the principal.

2001 Red Lion machete attack
Location	North Hopewell-Winterstown Elementary School Red Lion, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Date	February 2, 2001; 24 years ago (2001-02-02) c.11:30 a.m. – c.11:48 a.m. (EST)
Target	Elementary school students and staff
Weapons	Machete, baseball bat
Deaths	0
Injured	14
Perpetrator	William Michael Stankewicz
Motive	Anger against ex-wife for divorce and molestation accusations

Stankewicz was convicted and received a minimum of 132 years.

Attack

On February 2, 2001, Michael Stankewicz drove from Tennessee to York County, Pennsylvania. He was armed with a 2-foot-long machete,^[1] which he sharpened twice while on his way to the school,^[2] and a baseball bat,^[3] hiding the weapons in his pantlegs.^[4]

At around midday, Stankewicz entered North Hopewell-Winterstown Elementary School, bypassing the keycard entry security system by following a parent who was remotely buzzed in by a school nurse.^[4] Upon being confronted by the nurse and the principal in the lobby, Stankewicz took out the machete and chased after the two women. The attacks took place in the school's halls, the nurse's office and the principal's office. The first 911 calls came in at 11:32 a.m.^[3]

Principal Norina Bentzel stopped the attack by jumping on Stankewicz and pinning him down.^[5] Stankewicz was shortly before 11:48 a.m.^[4]

Victims

The majority of the injured children had minor injuries and treated at area hospitals.^[1][6] One child had her arm broken while another had her ponytail cut off.^[1][4] All three of the adult victims were female^[7] and brought to Memorial Hospital in York, Pennsylvania, where a teacher and the principal required surgery for arm and hand injuries.^[8] Their conditions were not life-threatening.^[9][4]

Perpetrator

William Michael Stankewicz, known as Mike Stankewicz, was a former resident of York County and employed as a history teacher in Baltimore.^{[10][6][8][11]}

Stankewicz said he attacked the victims because he was angry about the failure of his marriage six years earlier. His fourth wife, Larisa Montgomery, a Russian-born mail-order bride from Kazakhstan,^[12][13] had divorced him, remarried, and alleged that he had molested his stepdaughters, aged 15 and 19.^{[14][15][16][17][18][19]} In 1996, after unsuccessfully demanding the deportation of Montgomery and her daughters,^[20][21] Stankewicz sent death letter threats to Montgomery, her lawyer, and a member of congress, for which he spent 2 years in federal prison.^[1][22] He had been living with his mother Josie Pavone in Johnson City, Tennessee, at the time of the attack.^[23]

Aftermath

Stankewicz was charged with 39 offences, including two counts of attempted homicide, seven counts of aggravated assault, and one count of having a weapon on school property. He was held on a $500,000 bond,^[7] later increased to $2,000,000.^[22] In November 2001, Stankewicz was sentenced to 132 to 264 years imprisonment, one of the longest prison sentences in York County history.^[1][24]

Norina Bentzel stated that in 2006, after the West Nickel Mines School shooting in neighboring Lancaster County, she was inspired to forgive Stankewicz for his actions as he ultimately didn't kill anyone. At the tenth anniversary of the attack, Bentzel recalled the incident and later violent occurrences at Red Lion Elementary, such as the 2003 killing of principal Eugene "Gene" Segro by a 14-year-old student in a murder-suicide and a 2005 stabbing in a tenth-grade classroom.^[4]

In a December 2010 letter from prison, he declared to have no remorse for his actions, instead blaming his ex-wife and United States immigration officials and congressmen for the attack and declaring himself a "victim".^[5]

On November 27, 2023, Stankewicz was found unresponsive in his cell at the State Correctional Institution – Dallas and was subsequently declared dead. He was 78.^[25]

In July 2024, Bentzel published a memoir about the machete attack, describing Stankewicz's motives and repeating that she forgave Stankewicz for his actions.^[26] The book, Glorious Sadness – Faith-Love-Hope Trumps School Attack, was awarded the Delta Kappa Gamma International Society Educator's Book Award in July 2025.^[21]