Union Gap woman accused of stabbing boyfriend, refusing to surrender to deputies

A Union Gap woman is being held in jail after police say she stabbed her boyfriend April 17.

The woman was arrested in the Lower Valley after a standoff with Yakima County sheriff’s deputies that lasted more than 90 minutes.

Yakima County Superior Court Judge Richard Bartheld set bail for the woman at $100,000 during a Monday hearing. Bartheld presided over the hearing because Judge Sonia Rodriguez True, who was scheduled to preside over preliminary appearances that day, is a relative and recused herself from the case.

Police went to the victim's home in Union Gap for a report of a stabbing. The victim and the suspect had been in a relationship for a year-and-a-half and lived next door to each other, and he said that she accused him of being unfaithful and started throwing things inside his home, the affidavit said.

He asked her to leave, and he locked the gate to keep her from returning. She came back around 8:30 p.m. and used her key to open the gate, the affidavit said.

When the man went out to stop her from coming in, she drove forward and hit him with the front bumper of her vehicle. He was able to jump on to the hood of the vehicle, and she then got out with a knife and stabbed him in the abdomen before driving off, the affidavit said.

One of her children was in the vehicle at the time, the affidavit said.

The victim was taken to MultiCare Yakima Memorial Hospital in Yakima, where he was operated on for damage to his colon, a kidney and spleen.

Yakima County sheriff’s deputies located the suspect’s vehicle on Lateral A north of Progressive Road, and she refused to get out of the vehicle, the affidavit said. She was holding a knife to her throat, and at one point she got out of the vehicle with the knife to her neck and refused orders to drop the weapon.

A deputy fired a less-lethal beanbag round at her, but she continued to refuse orders to drop the knife and got back in the vehicle. She dropped the knife and surrendered after an hour and 45 minutes, the affidavit said, and had two small stab wounds to her abdomen which required surgery.

She was booked into the Yakima County jail Monday, after her release from the hospital, on suspicion of first-degree assault, fourth-degree assault, first-degree driving with a suspended license and not having an ignition interlock device.

At Monday’s hearing, Deputy Yakima County Prosecuting Attorney Amy Yarger argued for $250,000 bail, noting the woman’s prior felony and misdemeanor convictions in Utah, as well as a misdemeanor conviction in Arizona and a drunken-driving arrest in Oregon.

She also has convictions in Washington for felony DUI and vehicular assault, according to court records.

“She poses a serious risk to public safety not only to her victim but the young child who witnessed the incident and the law enforcement officers who took hours to arrest her,” Yarger said.

Defense attorney Melissa Derry said a $50,000 bail would be more appropriate due to the suspect’s limited income and that she had no pending charges at the time of her arrest. She said a lower bail is also appropriate given the long delays in appointing public defenders.

Derry asked that the no-contact order be modified to allow her to remain in her home with her children.

Patrick True, a local attorney and a relative of the victim, urged Bartheld to not modify the order, as the suspect let herself into his property and the man had to have part of his colon removed because of the stabbing.

While Derry objected to True’s comments, which she said was unusual to have in a preliminary appearance and were not given under oath, Bartheld said that True was not speaking about probable cause but a bail condition.

Bartheld said he has known True as an attorney, and he has attended judicial functions with True and Rodriguez True but they did not socialize beyond that.

Reviewing the evidence, Bartheld said that the suspect was not a candidate for pretrial release and $100,000 bail was a reasonable amount based on the facts of the case. He also said that the woman would have to leave her home to comply with the no-contact order, which bars her from coming within 1,000 feet of the victim.

“I have no reason to believe that she cannot find alternative housing. I find that living next door to the victim would be an open invitation to further criminal activity in this case,” Bartheld said.