Hospital stabbing suspect committed earlier knife attack

The man arrested in a stabbing outside Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital on Milwaukee’s east side previously was convicted of stabbing two women in an unprovoked attack, court records show.

The 53-year-old man was arrested Monday night after Milwaukee police were called to a stabbing in the parking structure of the hospital, 2301 N. Lake Drive.

A woman who had been visiting family at the hospital was walking to her vehicle about 7:10 p.m. Monday when a man tried to rob her at knifepoint and stabbed her, police said. The man took the woman’s purse but quickly discarded it, according to police. He was arrested in the area of 35th St. and Wisconsin Ave.

The woman was seriously injured but is expected to survive, officials said.

The case against the man will be referred to prosecutors for possible charges later this week.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel typically does not name uncharged suspects, and police say the investigation is ongoing.

At the time of his arrest, the man was on extended supervision. He was released from prison in August. A spokesman with the state Department of Corrections was not immediately available to respond to questions about the man’s supervision.

The man was convicted of second-degree reckless injury in the 2006 stabbing of two women at a Milwaukee house. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and eight years of extended supervision. The case took more than a year to go through the court system as his own attorneys and prosecutors questioned his competency and mental health.

According to court records: In 2006, just days after Thanksgiving, the man went to an apartment on N. 68th St. just south of W. Florist Ave. He knew his friend’s girlfriend lived there. He went to the residence about four times a week to shower and get cleaned up. His friend wasn’t there, but the girlfriend let him in. The girlfriend’s cousin was visiting at the time.

The girlfriend had a 7-centimeter cut on her cheek that required 25 stitches, as well as a cut on the lower lid of her eye and another cut on her neck. Her cousin was stabbed in her ribs and had wounds on top of her head and her arms.

The man entered an insanity defense but later decided to plead not guilty and went to trial. A jury convicted him of second-degree recklessly endangering safety and second-degree reckless injury in January 2008.