ROCKFORD, Ill. — Authorities have announced charges against a 22-year-old Winnebago County man in connection with a stabbing rampage that killed four and wounded seven others Wednesday afternoon in Rockford.

Christian Soto was charged, Rockford officials said at a Thursday press briefing. Soto faces 11 charges of murder and attempted murder and two charges of home invasion with a dangerous weapon, according to Winnebago County Sheriff records.

Court records show Soto lives about a block from where he allegedly attacked 11 people, killing four, including a mail carrier, in a southeast Rockford neighborhood.

Rockford Mayor Tom McNamara identified the dead as Romona Schupbach, 63, Jacob Schupbach, 23, Jay Larson, 49, and Jenna Newcomb, 15.

Early Thursday, Craig Garr stood in his driveway in that neighborhood and watched a tow service load his Jeep Grand Cherokee onto the bed of a truck.

Blood still splattered his driveway. It was on his door frame, on his yard decorations and especially on two rocks that were usually by his front door but on Thursday were lying near a set of deep tire tracks on his front lawn.

He is 74 and has lived on Winnetka Drive for 45 years. Garr’s mail came early Wednesday afternoon. It was two pieces. Just after the letters came through the slot, Garr said he was in his computer room and heard “a commotion, like a garbage truck.”

“I looked out my window and I saw a guy hovering by my window. And then I saw the mail guy down there and he was just beating the (expletive) out of him,” he said. “And I said, ‘What are you doing?’ And the guy said, ‘He stole money from me.'”

Then the letter carrier, Larson, rolled over. He recognized Garr. “He said, ‘Call 911.'”

Garr said the man beating up the mailman saw he had the phone in his hand and made for the front door. Garr shut and bolted the door “so he couldn’t get in the house.”

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