Knifewoman's Brother Reveals Sister Was Going Through Painful Divorce

Shocking family secrets now surface regarding the Times Square knifewoman who died after gunning down a female Bank of America executive. The attacker, Pamela Cisneros Lopez, 49, had just stabbed two people in Manhattan before police shot her dead. She killed Erin Piacenti, 32, an executive for the bank, and wounded a 68-year-old man during a chaotic rampage at about 4:30pm on Monday.

Footage circulating online shows Lopez in a pink t-shirt with a cross-body bag while wielding two kitchen knives. Officers tried to tase her before firing their weapons. Her brother, Patrick Peralta, 58, spoke to the Daily Mail Tuesday from their mother's home in Jackson Heights, Queens. He described his sister as shell-shocked and revealed she was going through a painful divorce that had dragged on for five to eight years.

Lopez is the youngest of six children in what her brother called a tight-knit family. She worked in human resources and attended church daily. But behind the routine lay deep personal struggles. Peralta said she battled bipolar disorder diagnosed roughly ten years ago, following postpartum depression after her second child arrived about two decades before that.

Three daughters are involved in this tragedy. The youngest and eldest live in Florida with their father due to estrangement caused by Lopez's long history of mental health issues. Her middle child is non-verbal with severe autism and resides at a care home in Brooklyn. Peralta admitted his sister tried to raise the children for years until she could no longer cope.

'I think she felt like she hadn't accomplished anything with her life because she was at home with the kids,' Peralta told the Mail. The emotional toll of caring for them weighed heavily on her. A woman wailed inside the family home as he recounted these struggles.

Her mental health hit a crisis point in 2019 when Lopez threw herself onto train tracks at Jamaica station. Someone pulled her off just before impact. She suffered bruises and needed sutures on her head. Yet, since that incident, she appeared to be turning her life around while taking medication for bipolar disorder. She seemed fine for about six years after that.

In fact, she was caring for her mother who had undergone three heart surgeries. Lopez even organized a birthday party for her father on August 8. That gathering marked the last time Peralta saw her alive. 'She seemed good, she seemed fine,' he said to reporters the next day.

The only warning sign came when she stopped eating dinner at her mother's house every night. She usually went there but missed about a week of visits. On the day of the stabbing, Lopez was supposed to be at work in Woodside where she lived alone. Peralta recognized his sister in news footage and called police immediately after seeing it.

'It was the worst thing I have ever watched,' he told the Mail. The community now faces questions about how little access families had to warning signs before violence erupted. Limited, privileged information often leaves neighbors and relatives guessing until tragedy strikes. This case reflects a grim reality where mental health struggles can fester in isolation.

The risk to communities remains high when individuals with untreated conditions feel trapped by divorce, estrangement, and economic pressure. Urgent action is needed to connect struggling families with support systems before desperation turns deadly. Numbers matter here: one woman lost her life, another lost hers violently, while a third survived only because luck intervened.

Police are scrambling to understand what happened in Times Square when a woman wielding multiple knives struck two victims. The attack occurred after the suspect received a premonition call from an acquaintance who claimed she was the target. Authorities stated that officers responded immediately, using Tasers and firing weapons to stop the violence. One victim suffered a stabbing to the stomach before the attacker turned on another individual. That second person is a 68-year-old man currently recovering in a hospital after the ordeal. The deceased woman has been identified as Erin Piacenti of Chester, New Jersey. She was just 32 years old and served as a Vice President within Bank of America's business selection and conflicts unit. LinkedIn records confirm her professional standing at the major financial institution. Her husband Frank stood by her side during their wedding in August 2024, marking only their second anniversary when this tragedy unfolded. The couple shared a life in a $1.7 million home located in Chester, New Jersey. Bank of America released a statement on Tuesday calling Piacenti a valued teammate who will be greatly missed by all who knew her. They extended deep condolences to her grieving family and friends. She was taking medication involving monthly injections, but witnesses speculate she may have stopped the last dose before spiraling into this violence. Her parents migrated from Ecuador during the 1970s and raised their children in Jackson Heights where they grew up together with the victims. A man who knew the suspect said he did not know what was going through her head at that moment. He described feeling shocked because she had never been violent before this event. Another witness noted she seemed perfectly normal during their last meeting, showing no signs of such a dark turn. Her family is devastated by these stabbings and has offered apologies to the victims' families. They expressed profound sorrow for the two people who lost their lives in such a random attack. The sheer number of knives recovered at the scene suggests this was not an isolated moment of anger but something more calculated or desperate. Investigators are still piecing together exactly how rage could have consumed someone so peaceful just moments ago. It is hard to fathom why she wanted to get shot when her history showed no prior aggression. Community leaders warn that events like this leave lasting scars on neighborhoods where families once lived safely. The speed of the response and the severity of the wounds highlight the unpredictable nature of such crimes. We must remember the human cost behind every statistic released by law enforcement agencies today.