A Brooklyn father went berserk and fatally plunged a kitchen knife into his 18-month-old girl's heart after stabbing her mother

Tamer El-Ghobashy:

"Help me!" shouted the wounded, blood-soaked mom, Natasha Martin, 32, as she carried her dying daughter outside in her arms and banged on a neighbor's window in Canarsie.

"She didn't know where the blood was coming from," said neighbor Veronica Cummings. "She was bleeding all over."

Cummings' daughter, Hallacy Knight, 23, sped the mother of four and the mortally wounded tot, Samara Palmer, to Brookdale University Hospital while Cummings watched Martin's sons, ages 4 and 5.

"They saw the whole thing," Cummings said. "The older one was throwing up and the little one was crying."

Moments earlier inside the baby's bedroom on Bedell Lane, Dwayne Palmer, 32, stabbed Martin's head, throat and back with a knife he had brought from his East New York home, cops and relatives said.

Palmer had wanted to take Samara back to his home, but Martin refused.

As Martin's sons cowered nearby, an enraged Palmer grabbed another knife from the kitchen and stabbed the baby at 1 a.m., cops and relatives said.

"She tried stopping him, but she was hurting from her own stabbing," said Martin's mom, Narissa Martin, 57.

Her tiny heart and left lung sliced by the blade, Samara died at Brookdale at 2:08 a.m.

Samara was just starting to speak her first words and take her first steps.

"She could say 'mama' and 'papa,'" Cummings said.

Hours later, Martin was in stable condition. "She's in pain," said Narissa Martin. "It's horrible, but we're trying to hang on right now."

Palmer fled but cops nabbed him later at his Hinsdale St. home, where he lives with his grandmother.

He was charged with second-degree murder, attempted murder and weapons possession, police said. He faces up to 25 years to life in prison, if convicted.

Palmer - whom friends said has a history of mental illness - has two sealed arrests for aggravated harassment and assault, police sources said.

In recent weeks, Natasha Martin complained to pals that Palmer wasn't taking his medication and was acting "paranoid" and more violent.

But Martin felt sorry for Palmer and couldn't bear to leave him - even ignoring an order of protection that she had filed a month or so ago, sources said.

Father Charged In Stabbing Death Of Baby Daughter