photo courtesy of CBS
According to Dallas News, Stephon Washington, a McKinney, Texas native, has been sentenced to 40 years in prison and convicted of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon.
On August 1, a jury of his peers found the man guilty of the first-degree felony after it was proven that he was linked to several still pending charges on other crimes in his past. The Judge presiding over the case, Rayburn Nall, sentenced Washington to 40 years after his guilty conviction.
The incident happened in the early morning of July 2021. The unnamed victim was attacked in Towne Lake Park in McKinney by a man later identified as Washington.
CBS revealed that the victim was jogging when Washington grabbed her from behind at knifepoint and dragged her into a bathroom, telling her to remove her shirt, then asking for money. The man dropped the weapon after cutting himself and fled the scene, but not before telling the victim to “consider yourself lucky.”
The cut and the blood helped the McKinney Police Department to identify the assailant by his DNA left at the crime scene; he was arrested just hours after it took place.
CBS reported that Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis commented following the verdict, “Women should feel as safe as men to enjoy outdoor exercise without fear of a knife-wielding stranger’s violent attack. This verdict helps protect our citizens from a female predator bent on continuing to terrorize women.”
The first recorded aggravated assault Washington committed was in 2019 “with a gun – against a motel housekeeper. He followed her into a room she was cleaning and assaulted her with a gun.”
His second took place just weeks before the most recent attack. Washington burglarized the home of a mother with two young daughters. He also left his DNA on the scene.