Police: Man stabbed two girlfriends years apart
Thaddeus Thomas stabbed to death his girlfriend in 1997 then raced off in her car. And last week, police say the felon struck again in an eerily similar way — just four miles from the scene of the earlier killing.
While sitting in his girlfriend’s car in Fort Lauderdale on Sunday, Aug. 22, Thomas pulled out a large kitchen knife and plunged it into Pinkston’s shoulder and neck after telling her he was going to kill her, police say.
Kamilah Pinkston fell to the ground as she tried to escape from her own vehicle.
Pulling herself to her feet, Pinkston briefly took off down Southwest 31st Avenue before once again crumpling to the ground.
Turning her head, she told police she saw Thomas jumping into the driver’s seat of her car and heading directly toward her. Police say Thomas drove right over Pinkston then threw the car in reverse, speeding off. Surveillance video, records say, captured the terrifying ordeal.
Pinkston, 41, survived the stabbing and was able to share the horror of what happened with police. Four hours after the bloody attack, Thomas, 48 — last freed from prison just five years ago — willingly walked into the Fort Lauderdale Police Department to surrender.
After surrendering, Thomas did not want to talk about what happened but said he wanted police to know where to find Pinkston’s car.
Just as he had said, police found the 2017 Nissan at Roosevelt Gardens Park. Court records say the vehicle had extensive exterior damage. Blood could be seen inside the vehicle as well as on the driver’s side door handle, records say.
Another girlfriend of Thomas’ from many years ago did not survive his blows with a blade.
Tammy Harper was 29 when Thomas stabbed her to death. Then 23, Thomas had just moved into Harper’s home in Lauderdale Manors. When she was killed, Harper left behind three children, ages 7, 6 and 5.
In 1998, Thomas was sent to prison on a second-degree murder charge, a place he had already been all-too familiar with, for another 18 years.
Family members of Thomas and Harper could not be reached for comment. Neither Pinkston nor her family returned phone calls.
Friend Bertha Bentley, 69, said she met Thomas about three years ago and Pinkston a year after that. She said she knew Thomas had been been in prison for a killing, but she figured it was like the many killings that plague the country when young men kill other young men over drugs, money or disrespect.
“Oh,” she said when the South Florida Sun Sentinel told her about the previous stabbing that killed Harper. “I didn’t know it was a girl.”
Bentley picked Thomas up at Roosevelt Gardens Park in the early evening on Aug. 22 after he called her in a panic asking her to come get him, Bentley said. She said he seemed paranoid, could not stop crying and kept telling her to bring him to jail.
When they arrived at the police station, court records say Bentley spontaneously told a detective that Thomas had “stabbed and ran her over.” When asked to clarify who “her” was, court records say Bentley said, “the girl he used to run with — Kami.”
Bentley told the Sun Sentinel she’s too troubled by what happened to remember what either of them said. She did say she was very concerned for Pinkston’s health: “I hope that girl is all right.”
Fort Lauderdale Police said Friday that Pinkston was in stable condition at Broward Health Medical Center.
Court records say Thomas and Pinkston started dating about five years ago. For a couple of years they lived together until early August when Pinkston told police she ended the relationship. She told police that after the break-up he had been peppering her to help him change the passwords on his phone.
Thomas is now being held without bond as his case plays out in Broward County Court. Should the case go forward and if he is convicted of attempted murder and related charges, Thomas may never be a free man again.
Thomas was first hauled off to prison in 1991 for shooting Clinton O’Neal outside a grocery store. News reports say Thomas, then 17, pulled out a gun and fired it four times striking O’Neal once the chest after an argument about a woman the two of them were seeing. O’Neal survived. At the time, Florida was on the brink of getting very tough on youthful offenders but was not quite there. Thomas was freed from prison the following year.
Months later, he was arrested again for aggravated battery. The case went to trial and he was found not guilty, records show. But by June 1993, just two years after first going to prison for shooting the man outside the grocery store, Thomas was back in prison for burglary. He was sentenced and labeled as a habitual felon.
In less than two years, be was behind bars again for stabbing Harper to death.
“He’s pretty messed up,” Bentley said.