Suspect identified in ‘screaming lady’ slaying

San Jose police have identified 37-year-old Marquis Reynolds as the suspect in the stabbing death of a homeless woman in front of a Walgreens on West Carlos Street Monday evening.

Reynolds was apprehended on the 2000 block of Beatrice Court and booked into jail on suspicion of homicide. He is expected to make his first court appearance on Thursday.

This isn’t Reynolds’ first run-in with the law; according to court records, he has a criminal record dating back at least seven years.

His offenses include assaulting a health club manager who questioned Reynolds’ photo ID and club card in September 2009. He pleaded no contest to misdemeanor willful use of force and violence on a person and was sentenced to court probation and 25 days in jail.

He also pleaded no contest to misdemeanor use of force and violence on a person four years earlier after assaulting a girlfriend’s roommate who directed a racial slur towards him, according to a police report.

Police said that Reynolds was practicing taekwondo and was in top physical condition at the time.

Reynolds was ordered to take anger management classes as a result of the assault.

He was also sentenced to 11 months in jail in 2010 after being convicted of domestic battery. He was acquitted, however, of carjacking.

The victim, whose name has yet to be released, was simply known by San Jose residents as “the screaming lady” because she always screamed while sitting in front of the Walgreens store where she was repeatedly stabbed with a samurai sword.

Police said she suffered from at least one stab wound and was pronounced dead on the scene.