Charges filed in March 29 alleged stabbing

WORTHINGTON — Charges were filed Tuesday against Kelli Jo Torres, who is accused of stabbing her husband with a knife during a March 29 domestic altercation.

Torres is charged with three counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, one count of terroristic threats and one count of child endangerment.

At approximately 7:17 a.m. March 29, the officers were dispatched to a West Oxford Street residence, where they found the victim standing on the front steps of the home. Officers noted blood dripping from a wound on the victim’s arm.

The victim told authorities his wife had threatened to kill him and had poked at him with a knife while he was holding their baby.

When he tried to turn away, he said, she stabbed him in the arm.

Officers found the baby crying but uninjured on a reclining chair in the living room.

Blood was found on the chair and the child’s pajamas, and a trail of blood led throughout the living room, kitchen and into the attached garage entry of the house.

The victim told the police Torres had left in a green van.

They went to her parents’ house in Rushmore and called her name. A woman’s voice allegedly yelled out she was going to kill herself, and a deputy then saw the woman open the living room blinds holding a .22 caliber rifle.

Officers were then informed of the presence of Torres’ teenage brother in the house.

A short time later, Torres came out of the house and was apprehended.

The teenager said to authorities he had woken up when his sister came into the house yelling and told him she had done something bad.

He later told a detective he saw his sister pick up the gun and heard her say she was going to kill herself.

He said she ended up giving him the gun, which he put back in the case.

He did not know if the gun was loaded at the time.

At the hospital, the victim was being treated for his wounds.

An emergency room physician told the detective the victim was treated for two wounds on his upper arm and two superficial wounds.

During a more complete statement, the victim said he saw Torres holding the knife and assumed she was going to cut herself, as she had allegedly done in the past.

He heard her say, he claims, “Today is your day to die,” so he decided to take the child and leave.

When she blocked the door and tried to stab him, he said, he went toward the back door, but she stabbed at him with the knife again, narrowly missing the child’s foot.

The victim said he told her to leave, but she came closer while swinging the knife and stated she did not care and was going to kill him and the child.

He tried to kick at her and she swung at him, he said, then he saw he had been cut.

While in the deputy’s squad car on the way to the law enforcement center, Torres allegedly told the deputy she had taken a handful of prescription medication because she didn’t want to live anymore.

The deputy took her to the emergency room at Sanford Worthington Medical Center,where she was treated. In a later statement to authorities, she said she and her husband had gotten in a fight that morning and he had tried to choke her, so she took out a knife to hurt herself.

She thought she may have cut him when he tried to take the knife from her.

She threw the knife out the window on the way to her parents’ house, she said.

She allegedly stated she had used a half gram of methamphetamine the previous day, and claimed she used meth for a couple of days at a time every couple of weeks.

The following morning, a detective drove the route Torres had reportedly taken and was able to locate the alleged weapon, which matched the description of the knife given by the victim.

Torres, under the last name of Hansen, was charged with second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon in January 2009 after a Dec. 31, 2008, incident.

The charge was later dismissed as part of a plea agreement, and she ended up with a conviction for interfering with an emergency call and disorderly conduct.

She was sentenced to serve one year in the county jail, and is currently on probation for that conviction.

Shortly after the March 29 incident, Torres was placed in a behavioral health unit.

Tags: kelli jo torres, news, crime, stabbing, charges, kelli, jo, torres