16-year-old charged with attempted homicide in Warner Park stabbing

January 19, 2023 4:27 PM

Logan Rude,

Posted: January 19, 2023 4:27 PM

Updated: January 19, 2023 5:41 PM

by Logan Rude

MADISON, Wis. — A 16-year-old girl who allegedly seriously injured another teenager in a stabbing on Madison’s northside earlier this week has been charged with attempted homicide, court records show.

Prosecutors filed a charge of first-degree attempted homicide against the 16-year-old Thursday afternoon just a day after police arrested the girl. Despite charges being initially filed in adult court, News 3 Now has decided not to name her until court officials finally determine whether or not the case gets moved to juvenile court.

Following the girl’s arrest, Madison police said the stabbing stemmed from some sort of a disturbance at a nearby Madison middle school earlier on Tuesday. Later that day, a group of people met at Warner Park to discuss the earlier altercation, and that’s when the girl allegedly stabbed the victim.

When first responders made contact with the victim on the night of the stabbing, a Madison police officer found the victim bleeding from a 1.5-inch stab wound directly on top of where his heart would be. Medical staff at a local hospital later said the victim would have likely died if the knife had gone 3 millimeters deeper.

He has since undergone surgery and is expected to survive.

In conversations with a witness after the stabbing, one person reportedly told police they heard the girl say “I’m gonna stab someone,” though that witness did not directly witness the stabbing.

Witnesses at the scene reportedly told police that the victim was trying to break up one of the many fights that broke out at Warner Park as multiple groups met to discuss the fight at the school; however, the girl charged in the stabbing told police that the victim was fighting a friend of hers when she stabbed him.

According to the complaint, the victim was unarmed. The suspect reportedly used a kitchen knife in the attack, which she later threw out of a car as she left the area.