EVERETT — Prosecutors have charged an 18-year-old Shoreline woman with first-degree domestic-violence assault in connection with a Dec. 26 knife attack on her boyfriend.
Tiana S. Star Cox remains at the Snohomish County Jail, with bail set at $100,000. She is accused of using a fillet knife to slit the man’s throat and then stab him in the chest.
“Blood began pouring from his throat and he heard air hissing from the cut,” prosecutors wrote in the charging papers filed last week.
The woman is considered “a danger to public safety,” the charges say.
In statements to Everett police, Star Cox said she had audio recordings on her phone of her boyfriend threatening to kill her shortly before she attacked him.
Everett police earlier this month served a search warrant to collect the woman’s phone and go through the files. The results of that warrant aren’t being made public while the investigation is ongoing, Everett police spokesman Aaron Snell said.
Police found out about the assault when the bleeding man staggered into the Everett Avenue Market and collapsed on the floor the day after Christmas, according to investigative documents. Other shoppers called 911 and tried to help the man.
Star Cox reportedly ran into the store, took off her shirt and gave it to the shoppers, who were trying to stop the bleeding. She then laid down next to the man on the floor.
The man told police they were driving in his 1995 Toyota Tercel when the attack started. They had been fishing earlier that day on Whidbey Island and stopped in Everett to buy beer.
Investigators followed a blood trail from the store to the man’s car, which was parked on Maple Avenue nearby. Through the windows, blood was visible on the seats, dashboard and steering wheel, according to the documents. A bloody knife was seen on the passenger seat. The vehicle was impounded until officers obtained the search warrant.
“After being transported to the police station, (Star Cox) kept yelling, ‘Baby, I love you,” according to court papers.
The man spent several days recovering at a Seattle trauma center. Although police initially reported the man received an 11-inch cut, it turned out to be about five inches. Even so, the injury cut into his trachea and shoulder muscles.
Star Cox allegedly admitted to detectives that she stabbed the man. She said he was abusive but that she had never reported the abuse to authorities. She said that before she started stabbing him he threatened to “dump her in the river,” documents show. She also told detectives they would find threatening text messages from the man on her cell phone.
The man denied any prior abuse or making threats. He said the attack was unprovoked.
Star Cox has no criminal history in Washington.
The boyfriend, 25, of Shoreline, has convictions for assault and harassment in a King County court case from 2010, records show. In that case, the boyfriend was accused of hitting another man in the face with a gun because he suspected the man was involved with a woman he was seeing at the time.
He threatened to shoot and kill people at the scene if they told police, according to court papers.
A former girlfriend in that dispute later sought a protection order against the man.
Court papers show he also has convictions for second-degree robbery, reckless burning, stealing a car, trespassing and malicious mischief.
Star Cox and the man had been dating and living together for about eight months, court papers show. They were living in a moored boat. The man reportedly had given the woman the fillet knife for Christmas.
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
