Friends of the 24-year-old woman who was attacked by her Tinder date outside a Cohasset home last week started a fund to help her with medical bills after she was stabbed and slashed several times.
A GoFundMe page was started for Maegan Tapley, who was identified by family and friends as the woman who was attacked by 25-year-old Erich Stelzer Thursday night.
“On Thursday December 27, Maegan Tapley fell victim to a domestic violence dispute that could have ended her life, if not for the heroic efforts of the Cohasset Police Department,” the fund reads. “Maegan’s injuries are extensive and will require many surgeries. Her recovery will take a very long time.”
The person who started the fund is a longtime friend of Tapley’s mother.
Tapley is the youngest of four siblings who worked as a veterinary assistant in Saugus, her sister told Boston 25 News. The sister told the television station that Tapley will have a long recovery.
Tapley’s mother, Susan, told NECN her daughter had several injuries. The Norfolk District Attorney’s office said the woman sustained extensive stabbing and slashing injuries.
"She's going to mend, she's going to be alright. It's going to take time to recover," Tapley’s mother told the television station. "She'll need plastic surgery and an eye specialist.”
Cohasset police were called to a home on Church Street around 10 p.m. Thursday and found Tapley, who was able to escape Stelzer, according to the district attorney’s office.
The Boston Globe reports the two met on Tinder, a dating app.
“In an effort to rescue the victim and disarm Stelzer, Cohasset police officers used tasers to subdue Stelzer,” the district attorney’s office said.
EMTs provided Stelzer with medical attention, but he became unresponsive on the way to the hospital. He then died, authorities said.
Family of Stelzer said in a statement released by a lawyer that they noticed a “decline in his mental health” and asked police to intervene.
“He was experiencing delusions, erratic behavior and extreme paranoia,” Philip G. Cormier, a lawyer for Diane Keiran, Stelzer’s mother, wrote in a statement Saturday.
He had been receiving treatment for an unspecified mental illness in the month leading up to the attack and, during a Christmas evening at a family gathering, it “became clear that his needs were not being met,” Cormier wrote.
The family called Cohasset police and EMTs to perform an assessment on Stelzer on Dec. 25. The EMTs determined he did not need assistance, the statement from Stelzer’s family said.
“The family of Erich Stelzer wishes to express its deepest sympathy for the victim and her family. They are without words to adequately communicate their grief and sorrow at the events that transpired, the physical and mental pain caused to the victim, and the loss of life of a young man who was someone’s little brother and someone’s son,” Cormier wrote in the statement.