Police have arrested and charged a man they claim fatally stabbed the step-granddaughter of actor Morgan Freeman in Manhattan early on Sunday, reports the Washington Post.

E'dena Hines, 33, was discovered on Sunday morning lying in the street outside her Washington Heights apartment building in Manhattan with about 16 stab wounds to her chest, New York police told The Washington Post.

Hines was transported by ambulance to Harlem Hospital where she was pronounced dead, police said.

A man identified as Lamar Davenport, 30, Hines' boyfriend and an aspiring rapper, was standing over her body shouting Bible verses and exorcism incantations, according to police. Davenport was taken into police custody and transported to the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center for a psychological evaluation.

On Monday, police said Davenport, who was still hospitalized for evaluation, is charged with second-degree murder. He is expected to be arraigned Monday afternoon, New York police Officer Chris Pisano told The Washington Post.

One witness said it appeared Davenport was performing an exorcism.

"I heard him say something like 'Devil, be gone, Jesus and God,'" George Hudacko told CBS News. He heard the commotion from his nearby apartment.

Neighbor Patrick Curry told the station he witnessed the stabbing. "He was kneeling over her and screaming about 'God has arisen," he said. "He was totally off the ranch."

Hines, who is Freeman's granddaughter by marriage, is also an actor. She recently returned to New York from Memphis where she starred in an independent film titled "Landing Up."

"My dream has come true and its just beginning," she wrote on her blog in July. "Life can make you want to give up or walk away; sometimes it gives you the strength to appreciate when you do get your happy ending."

"We're just in shock, we're in total grief," Stacey Maltin, 30, the screenwriter who wrote the "Landing Up" script, told Newsday. "We really just can't believe that anyone would want to do this to her, that she was taken from the world in this way."

"The world will never know her artistry and talent, and how much she had to offer," Freeman said in a statement. "Her friends and family were fortunate enough to have known what she meant as a person. Her star will continue to shine bright in our hearts, thoughts and prayers. May she rest in peace."

Freeman's publicist said Sunday that Hines was the actor's step-granddaughter, but that he referred to her as his granddaughter.

"I want to acknowledge the tremendous outpouring of love and support my family has received regarding the tragic and senseless passing of my granddaughter Edena Hines," Freeman wrote on his Facebook page Sunday night. "Thank you from the bottom of my heart."

The stabbing remains under investigation.