16-year-old asked for money for food before stabbing 70-year-old woman in Kennewick

A 16-year-old claimed he needed money for food when he allegedly stabbed a 70-year-old Kennewick woman during an attempted robbery Wednesday afternoon.

The teen walked up to the woman shortly before 5 p.m. as she got out of her car outside the Desert Villa Apartments on Washington Street.

He asked the woman if she had any money and she replied that she did not carry cash with her, according to court documents.

The boy said he was hungry.

He then asked if he could tell her something. When she said, “OK,” he poked her with something in the back, documents said.

The victim told police that she screamed and the teen ran off.

She started feeling pain in her back and noticed she was bleeding, but it was only after she ran to a safe spot that she realized she had been stabbed, court documents said.

Knocked on doors for help

The woman went up to the fourth floor of the apartment building and knocked on doors until someone came out to help her, said Sgt. Joe Santoy.

The person who found her in the hallway called police.

Santoy said the woman did not initially see the knife. She was left with a cut wound on her back.

The woman was taken to Trios Southridge Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said. She was able to give a detailed description of the suspect.

Officers already had been looking for the teen after a pair of shoplifting thefts from two stores in the area earlier in the week, said Santoy. He lives less than a mile away.

Police surrounded a home on the 1100 block of South Gum Street and found the teen inside.

The boy appeared Thursday in Benton County Juvenile Court, where Judge Cameron Mitchell ordered him held on suspicion of second-degree assault with a deadly weapon.

Bail was set at $20,000 because Mitchell determined he is “a threat to community safety.”

If the boy is released from custody, he’s been ordered to stay away from the victim and not to have any guns, knives or other weapons.

This story was originally published December 5, 2019 at 9:02 AM.