VIRGINIA BEACH
As she led a shoplifting suspect toward an office inside the Kroger store on Providence Road, Tiffany Malcomb felt the young man pulling away.
"He has got a knife!" someone yelled.
Malcomb, a store manager, caught a glimpse of the blade and ducked as it passed. She tried to shove the man and stumbled, and the two fell to the floor.
There, Malcomb testified Wednesday, the young man plunged the knife into her face, severing her upper lip and penetrating her gum line. Three others also were stabbed and slashed during the melee, and Malcomb was attacked twice more - stabbed in the leg and in the back, where the blade pierced her liver - before the assailant escaped.
Malcomb recounted those details during the first day of the trial and pointed across a circuit courtroom to identify Michael D. Billings, 17, as the attacker. The Virginia Beach teen was arrested nearby shortly after the April 17 incident and is being tried as an adult on charges of malicious wounding and aggravated malicious wounding.
Malcomb and a co-worker, Ronald Johnson, testified that she saw Billings slip two cans of beer into his coat pocket. The two stopped Billings after he passed the checkout but before he reached the doorway.
When questioned, Billings dropped the cans onto the floor and agreed to walk to a store office, both testified. They made it less than 10 feet when the struggle ensued.
Defense attorney Taite Westendorf told Judge Patricia L. West that he wouldn't dispute prosecutor Lyla M. Zeidan's statement of facts, and he conceded his client "is certainly guilty of crimes." However, he said in his opening statement that Billings was highly intoxicated at the time and should be convicted of lesser offenses.
The trial is set to resume today.
Shawn Day, (757) 222-5131, shawn.day@pilotonline.com
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