Bernard Adrian Smith
A man who stabbed his former girlfriend seven times has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for attempted first-degree murder.
Bernard Adrian Smith also got five years for aggravated domestic assault.
Judge Boyd Patterson set the terms.
Smith was 57 at the time of the incident in May 2019.
Police found him standing over the former girlfriend while holding a knife. She had been stabbed seven times.
Police had responded to a disorder with a weapon at 1201 Boynton Dr. A woman who was standing outside said Smith was inside with the ex-girlfriend with the door locked.
When police knocked on the door, Smith hollered that everything was fine and he did not need police. When officers then heard a woman scream, they kicked in the front door. They also had to kick in a locked bathroom door.
They found Smith standing over the woman, who was bleeding profusely. She was rushed to the hospital.
The former girlfriend later spoke with an investigator. She said she and Smith had been together for six years, but he had been charged before for domestic violence against her.
She said he is not supposed to be in her building, but when she returned home he was inside. She said she did not know if her female friend had let him in.
The woman said after her friend went outside that he locked the door, grabbed her by the hair and pulled her into the bathroom.
She said he told her he was going to kill her and began stabbing her.
Smith claimed the woman stabbed herself.