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MOORHEAD, MN (WDAY) — A Hawley, Minn., man has been charged with first-degree assault and second-degree assault in connection with a double stabbing that court documents indicate was prompted by a romantic dispute.
Justin L. Wilcox, 50, is accused of stabbing a man in the abdomen and causing cuts to a woman’s hands during an altercation early Wednesday, Aug. 22, after Wilcox came home to find his wife with another man.
According to Clay County District Court documents:
About 2 a.m. Wednesday, 911 dispatchers received a report of a possible burglary at a mobile home park. When officers arrived, they found a man and woman with knife wounds.
The woman told police she and the man were together in her home when Wilcox, who is her husband, came home, and Wilcox and the man began fighting.
She said she suffered knife wounds during the fight and that she escaped the house by pushing an air conditioner out of a window and climbing through the window.
The male victim told police he recently started seeing the woman, believing she was separated from her husband.
The male victim was flown to a Fargo hospital where he was immediately taken to surgery “to treat or prevent imminent or life-threatening deterioration due to the trauma of his wound,” court documents said.
Police recovered a knife stuck in the sheetrock of bedroom wall in the home where the assaults took place, court documents said.
Wilcox was later taken into custody during a traffic stop, and he was held in the Clay County Jail for a court appearance Friday, Aug. 24, where his bail was set at $75,000.
During his arrest, Wilcox told an officer he wanted “the other guy” charged because the man tried to choke him out and that was why he stabbed him, according to court documents.
Wilcox later repeated that he had acted in self-defense before requesting an attorney, court documents said. On Friday, court records did not list an attorney for Wilcox.
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