A man says he was about to leave his house when his housemate suddenly attacked him with a knife. Now that he is gradually recovering, he takes a breath to recount his near-death experience.
José Abacu Villanueva says it all happened suddenly: “He went to the kitchen and came quickly… I didn’t have time to put my backpack on and then he came with the knife in hand and said to me: ‘Today I am going to kill you'”.
Villanueva only knows that today he is miraculously alive, after his roommate stabbed him as he left his home in Cutler Bay on Monday morning.
“He brought the knife here and he attacked and stabbed me 6 times…then I fell back here and he kept hitting me,” the victim recalled of the tragic moment.
Police identified the assailant as Josué Ruiz, 43, who stabbed the victim, leaving injuries to his hands, chest and ribs. One of the wounds would have been very close to the heart.
On the way to the hospital, there was a moment when Villanueva felt he was going to die. “Yes, my chest was hurting a lot, I was bleeding all over, they cut my shirt and they grabbed my chest because it was throbbing, it was throbbing like that.”
As José was taken to a medical center, the suspect attempted to escape in his underwear by running down the street, but was captured shortly afterwards.
The terrifying event left many amazed, including brothers from the church where the victim frequents.
Brenda Pacetti and her husband arrived at the victim’s home on Tuesday to help him. “We came to see how he was changing his gauze and what they did to him yesterday in the hospital.”
Understanding why his partner tried to kill him is still difficult to understand and even if he is behind bars, the memory of this gray episode persists in his nightmares, since he lived with it for 6 months.
“It’s all been cleaned up… there’s blood there… those shirts were hanging there and there’s still blood where the blood was shining,” says José Abacu Villanueva, who says this attack l left with great psychological trauma and a debt in the hospital that he has no way to pay
The accused remains in custody at the TGK County Jail tonight, without bond, as he faces a charge of attempted third degree murder.