© Philly.comCarol W. Ambruster
The Germantown apartment building where a retired Villanova University professor was found stabbed to death Monday night was not easily accessible to outsiders, one of the building's owners said Wednesday, suggesting that the woman might have known her killer.
Carol W. Ambruster, 69, a retired professor of astronomy, was found by her roommate in the kitchen of her apartment in the 5500 block of Wayne Avenue with a knife in her neck about 9 p.m., police said. She also had been stabbed in the chest.
Chief Inspector Scott Small said the scene indicated that there had been a violent struggle. Blood was spattered in several rooms of the four-bedroom, second-floor apartment, he said.
Ambruster's roommate, whom police did not identify, told investigators he found her dead when he returned home from running errands, said Capt. James Clark, commanding officer of the Homicide Unit.
The roommate - who was not romantically involved with Ambruster, Clark said, but was a friend who worked for the Philadelphia School District - said he had come home to the apartment building earlier in the night to retrieve his car, but did not go inside.
He told detectives that when he came back home, he found the apartment door unlocked, the lights off, and Ambruster dead in the kitchen. He told police he then ran to a neighbor, who called 911.
Nothing appeared to be stolen from the apartment, Clark said.
Detectives, who remained on the scene Wednesday looking for surveillance tape and interviewing neighbors, have not determined a motive for the killing, Clark said.
Comment: We used to live in a society where police officers were there to help members of the community whether they had been intoxicated or not. There are other ways to defend yourself against the belligerent, if that is even the case here. No human being deserves to be murdered in cold blood for 'resisting arrest'. Welcome to the Police State.