The search for the suspect who fatally stabbed a woman in parking lot Friday afternoon, just feet from a Togo's was called off that night.  

The stabbing happened in broad daylight on First Street across from the Santa Clara County Sheriff's headquarters Friday at around 2:30 p.m.

Witnesses said the attack was brutal.

"We could just see him stabbing the girl while she was on the floor and he was just going at it, stabbing her,” said Jenifer Camacho, a witness, “He stabbed her maybe 12 times." 

San Jose student Matt London was eating lunch at Togo's and was the first one to reach the 29-year-old woman.

His hands and shirt were covered in blood when police interviewed him after the victim was taken to the hospital.

 “I turned her over, she had a huge gash in her neck,” London said.  “Just massive blood pouring out. She had gashes in her arm like she tried to defend herself. “

London said he didn't see who stabbed the woman and tried to get her to tell him who did it. 

The woman died at the hospital about a half hour later.

Police immediately blocked off the neighborhood and started a door-to-door search and found evidence, but no suspect.

Officers faced many obstacles in their search.  

 “They have back houses to these lots, they're pretty good size,” said March Wilson, a neighbor. “There's a lot of places to hide.”

 “With the gravity of the crime, in this case a very brutal murder by knifepoint, we aired on the side of caution, sealed off the neighborhood in the event he was hiding in someone's backyard,” said San Jose police Sgt. Jason Dwyer.

No one was found in the search and police are not releasing a detailed description of the suspect.

But for Matt and the other people who witnessed the brutal crime making sense of what happened will not come easily. 

“It hasn't really sunk in yet,” London said. “I'm sure, tonight as I lay in bed I'm going to be thinking about it.”

Students at nearby Burnett Middle School were kept in their classrooms after the stabbing. 

Students were eventually escorted by police to their waiting parents a couple of hours later.

The woman's identity has not been released pending notification of her next of kin. Her death is San Jose's 10th homicide of 2013.