Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 19, 1993 TAG: 9308190005
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: OAKLAND, CALIF. LENGTH: Medium
What happened next surprised even veteran police officers.
"She was knocked to the ground. . . . Several people in the crowd stomped and kicked [her] on the ground, one person hit her with a bottle, they all were yelling," said Det. Sgt. John McKenna, who is investigating the case.
"They were all yelling . . . `Kill her! Kill her! kill her!' "
Wells was stabbed to death as she lay where she had fallen.
"I haven't seen anything quite like this and I've been doing this a long time," McKenna said.
McKenna sees the Aug. 11 stabbing as an ominous twist on the infamous case of Kitty Genovese, a New Yorker whose screams for help were ignored by neighbors as she was stabbed to death in 1967.
"People usually stand by and do nothing," he said. "This case is unique."
Acting on a tip, police later arrested Stacey Camille Lee, 19. She told police she was chasing a woman she believed to be a crack cocaine user out of her apartment building.
McKenna said Lee was remorseful and denied she was influenced by the chanting crowd. But he said police think the teen-agers, many believed to be drug dealers, played a role and they are trying to find them.
"I think this woman had a button that got pushed. She just went off," he said.
The confrontation began in Lee's apartment building. McKenna said she told police she had seen Wells smoking crack before. When she saw her on the night of Aug. 11, she confronted her. There was a fight, which Wells got the worst of. Neighbors separated the two.
"There was blood all over the walls," McKenna said.
A short time later, Lee emerged from her apartment with a knife and began chasing Wells, McKenna said.
Wells ran, trying to seek shelter in a liquor store. But someone inside slammed the door in her face, McKenna said.
"At this point, this group of people started to run down the street," he said. "They began running down the traffic lanes and surrounded and cut the girl off."
One witness told police Wells was "clotheslined," a football reference, in which a runner is cut down by an arm to the neck. Another witness said she was tripped.
As the group of about a dozen people, many believed to be drug dealers, chanted "kill her," Wells was stabbed several times, McKenna said.
Storekeeper Tsegai Teklu, who was in his liquor store when the uproar broke out, ran out to see Wells "bleeding and screaming." He denied his door was closed to Wells, but McKenna said witnesses, including Lee, confirmed it.
Lee appeared in court Tuesday but didn't enter any plea.
As for Wells, little is known, said McKenna. He said she was identified by fingerprints and had a record of trouble, but had not been arrested in six years.
"I'm not even sure if Wells is her real name," he said.
No family members had come forward by Wednesday, a week after the stabbing, he said.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB