By Michele Chadwick
WOODLAND, CA – Judge Tom Dyer of Yolo County Superior Court heard a preliminary hearing for the accused yesterday, and then ruled to uphold the charges and set it for trial.
The accused, a 75-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran, insisted he stabbed his granddaughter’s husband in self-defense.
When his granddaughter fell on hard times, the accused said he allowed her and her husband to move into his condo. The accused testified that he repeatedly experienced his granddaughter’s husband verbally abusing her.
The accused testified that on Jan 6, 2021, the husband “surprised me from behind” holding “a knife with a brown sticky substance on it by his head.”
When the accused’s granddaughter asked what he was doing, her husband allegedly replied, “I’m just here to scare Grandpa.”
The accused testified that he was “very frightened, very scared.”
The accused said his granddaughter’s husband “grabbed the door and smacked it hard on the top of my head” after he opened his granddaughter’s bedroom door with his gaze lowered.
The husband then allegedly went into a rage throwing things before going outside and punching the garage door twice, denting it.
While outside, the accused testified he and his granddaughter’s husband got into a physical altercation, and said the husband then got into his car, backed it up and then “aimed it right at” the granddaughter.
A mutual friend of the granddaughter and her husband got involved and urged the accused to return to the condo while he calmed him down. A neighbor called the police.
The accused originally told the officers that he wanted to press charges for the damage to the garage door. However, he dropped the charges as his granddaughter’s husband was not pressing charges.
The accused, now scared of his granddaughter’s husband, began to research the formal eviction process and involved an attorney.
On Feb 9, the accused testified that, while on a call with an attorney, he had to end the call to 911 because of domestic violence between his granddaughter and her husband.
The accused testified that he tried to protect his granddaughter from her husband and only avoided a physical altercation by telling her husband that he already phoned the police.
The husband then allegedly left the condo, breaking the lock on the door on his way out.
His granddaughter took her baby and left to stay with other family and drop her husband’s belongings off at his grandmother’s, said the accused who added that, shortly after, her husband returned and said he was there to get his stuff.
The accused testified the husband grabbed the nine-inch kitchen blade (4.5 inch blade) he was eating with in his room because he feared that his granddaughter’s husband would become aggressive based on “how he was looking at me, how he was glaring at me.”
The accused claimed he hid the knife on his person to prevent aggravating him further. The accused testified that he followed him into his room because he feared he would not be able to escape him as he is much stronger and faster.
The accused said he feared he would not be able to get to his landline without provoking an attack from his granddaughter’s husband.
The accused testified he informed him where his wife was taking his belongings but the husband did not believe the accused and became angry.
The accused claimed that, while grabbing something off the floor, his granddaughter’s husband got up on one knee and said, “I’m going to kill you.”
In an act of self-defense, the accused stabbed him “one time in the lower back to subdue him,” noting “I wasn’t trying to kill him. I wasn’t trying to stab him as many times as possible. I stabbed him one time in the back to get control because I knew I was no match for him.”
The accused testified that he tried to “subdue” his granddaughter’s husband but he was able to pull the knife out of his back, break the blade, then flee the room. The accused said during this altercation he was punched in the face multiple times.
After his granddaughter’s husband fled the condo, the accused said he called 911 after alerting neighbors to what had happened.
Judge Dryer stated that this was a difficult decision to make because the accused is elderly but believed that his actions did not reflect the actions of someone who feared for his life and the accused is physically larger than the alleged victim.
Dryer upheld the charges of assault likely to produce great bodily injury and threatening with the intent to terrorize.
