A bizarre 911 phone call, a missing knife and “inconsistent” statements are part of a recent stabbing investigation by the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station that may never see a courtroom, according to L.A. County Superior Court records.
SCV Sheriff’s Station deputies responded to an emergency call just before 4 p.m. Sept. 18 to a home on Spencer Court, south of Jakes Way, in Canyon Country.
The caller, later identified by SCV Sheriff’s Station detectives as a 35-year-old Santa Clarita resident, called the emergency line and told dispatchers “she was going to jail because she had accidentally stabbed her boyfriend (victim) while they were playing with swords,” according to a detective’s sworn statement.
The victim was taken to Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital while patrol deputies took statements from the suspect, which an investigator said were not consistent with the physical evidence initially seen, according to a later request to search for a knife in the home.
The version of events that the suspect gave deputies stated that the victim “backed into a wood spice rack,” but when deputies assessed the scene, they could only find a pool of blood on the kitchen’s laminate floors. They did not see any blood on the spice rack consistent with someone backing into it, according to the search-warrant request.
“Discarded paper towels were observed inside the trash can,” according to investigators. “Upon further review, deputies saw a kitchen knife missing from the knife board.”
The victim’s statement was similar to the suspect’s: “that while the suspect was in the kitchen, (the victim) backed into a wooden spice rack.”
The emergency room doctor at HMNH described the victim’s wound as the result of a downward puncture wound to his back. The wound was approximately 2 inches deep and a half-inch wide, with the report mentioning doctors “told deputies he could fit his finger inside the wound.”
Detectives noted the inconsistencies they observed, as well as the doctor’s statement of the wound being a downward puncture, which is more consistent with a stab wound.
A search warrant executed that day under exigent circumstances failed to recover the “edge weapon” detectives sought, according to court records filed Sept. 23.
The suspect was booked at the SCV Sheriff’s Station on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and then released the following day on $80,000 bail.
On Monday, a spokeswoman indicated a case was presented to the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office by detectives, but prosecutors declined to file the case due to insufficient evidence.
The latest data from the Sheriff’s Department indicates the number of violent crimes has risen by nearly 7% in the year-to-date figures through the end of August compared to the same time last year. During that same time, property crimes have dipped by more than 17%.
