Woman who stabbed Hartford police officer committed to psych hospital

A woman who was acquitted by reason of insanity after slashing a Hartford police officer with a knife in 2018 was committed Wednesday to a maximum-security psychiatric hospital for 38 years.

Chevoughn Augustin had faced attempted murder and assault charges for the attack on Officer Jill Kidik, who was stabbed in the neck and suffered lacerations to her jugular vein and trachea while responding to a landlord-tenant disturbance at an apartment building. Police officials said she nearly died, and they credited maintenance workers with saving her life.

Judge David Gold in Hartford committed Augustin to the staterun Whiting Forensic Hospital in Middletown for nearly four decades, WTIC-TV reported. He said Augustin, who has a history of schizophrenia and other mental health problems, was dangerous and cited other encounters she had with police.

A doctor testified Wednesday that Augustin had not taken her medication during the two months leading up to the attack. Kidik, who was a 13-year veteran of the force, took disability retirement in 2019. She spoke at Wednesday’s court hearing.

“She wanted me dead, and she could not have come any closer to succeeding,” Kidik said. “Chevoughn is not well. No one who can put a knife just once into another human body is well, and she did it repeatedly to me, a perfect stranger.

“She will do this again . ... If allowed back into society, she will attack someone again.”

Augustin was acquitted by reason of mental disease or defect in June. Her public defender, George Flores, said at the time that she was having a psychotic episode when she attacked Kidik and had not received treatment for schizophrenia for two years.