A woman from Washington pleaded guilty to charges of attempted first-degree domestic violence murder this week after allegedly attempting to kill her boyfriend with a samurai sword.
Emily Javier, who is 31, told investigators that she launched the attack on her boyfriend, Alex Lovell, in March last year after finding that he had downloaded Tinder on his phone. "I was trying to kill him for cheating. That was my purpose," she said.
She recalled how she bought the sword with the specific intent to murder Lovell, whom she'd been seeing for two years, and meticulously planned how she would do it. According to her account, she waited until he fell asleep, hid his phone so that he couldn't call for help, then started hacking at him with the sword she'd hidden on her side of the bed. She was also found to have taped two knives together and hidden those, too, presumably to use if the sword wasn't enough.
Javier called 911 after the incident, apparently believing that Lovell was dead.
"Everything happened so fast," Lovell said a week after the attack. "I’ve been piecing everything together laying here in this hospital bed for the past week."
Recalling the attack, Lovell said that his girlfriend accidentally woke him up before she swung the sword at him, so he was able to react quickly and block her using his arms and legs. At one point, he even grabbed hold of her and begged her to stop.
"I told her I loved her, and she was killing me," he said. "She needed to call the police, or I was going to die."
During the frenzy, the victim almost lost two of his fingers, sustained a cut to his right foot, a deep laceration to his left knee, a wound to his head, bruising on his neck, minor cuts on his torso, and injuries to his right wrist that required a cast.
Two of the injuries that he sustained were life-threatening, according to law enforcement.
Lovell was amazingly positive after the ordeal, though, saying: "The road, it’s all smooth sailing from here. I survived and have all the resources necessary to recover fully one day. I should be able to walk in six months, but it’s going to take hard work and dedication to relearn how to use my hands and legs."
Javier received an attempted murder charge, reportedly because it was obvious from her 911 call that she had intended to end Lovell's life during the attack, and had planned it more than a week in advance according to statements she made to police.
"I just stabbed my boyfriend. I think he's dead. You need to hurry," she said to the dispatcher.
According to The Columbian, "The prosecution will recommend a 20-year prison sentence for Emily Javier, 31, while the defense is free to argue for a sentence below the standard range of 15 to 20 years."
She will be sentenced March 11 in Clark County Superior Court.
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