Woman pleads guilty in Roanoke County stabbing
Ellen Lewis trashed the apartment she shared with a friend, then stabbed him.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
She trashed the place, bleaching his clothes and scrawling nasty messages in paint across the walls of the apartment. Then, Ellen Velesa Lewis grabbed a kitchen blade and ran out the front door.
Sitting in his tractor-trailer just outside, Donald Cheatwood didn't know what hit him, not at first. He said he watched as Lewis climbed up to the window and swung her fist inside, catching his shoulder with a knife and drawing blood.
That's when Roanoke County police officers arrived.
On Monday, two months after the June incident, Lewis stood before Roanoke County Circuit Judge James R. Swanson and pleaded guilty to single counts of property destruction and malicious wounding.
Cheatwood shook his head as he left the courtroom. At one time, Lewis had been his friend, he said, a troubled woman from Maryland who had come to live with him and pull her life together, he said.
Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Matthew Miller said a neighbor in the 5300 block of Sugar Loaf Mountain Road had called police during the commotion of Lewis' vandalism. Officers would later find thousands of dollars in damage inside the apartment, including two televisions and a computer smashed, a $2,000 oil painting ripped, and food splattered across the floors and walls.
"Mustard, ketchup, cream for the coffee and coffee grounds," Miller said.
According to reports from the police, Lewis' anger only intensified as officers led her through the jail intake process. At one point, she murmured, "He's lucky this time. Next time I'm going to kill him," Miller recalled.
Neither attorney elaborated on what might have sparked the incident.
As the commonwealth's attorney summarized the crime, Lewis turned and glared at Cheatwood, a stony demeanor that melted into tears once the judge began to ask her questions.
"How do you plead?" Apgar asked.
"Guilty," she replied.
The judge accepted her pleas and took both charges under advisement until probation officers have a chance to compile a pre-sentencing report. At least until that report is completed, Lewis will remain behind bars without a chance for bond. She's scheduled to appear again in court Sept. 26.
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THE ROANOKE TIMES
