Trio of men stop stabbing, save teen girl
Three men in a Whitehall neighborhood sprang into action when a teenage girl was being stabbed Tuesday afternoon.
The trio probably saved the 15-year-old girl’s life and helped capture the 16-yearold boy — her ex-boyfriend
— who Whitehall police say nearly killed her.
The girl was stabbed more than 20 times, police say, by Taji Kyle. Police also say that Kyle had lighter fluid and a lighter on him that he planned to use.
Kyle, of Columbus’ East Side, is charged with a delinquency count of attempted murder.
The girl, whose name was not released, was taken in critical condition to Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Her condition has since improved and she is
expected to recover, police said.
“This is a case where a few citizens of Whitehall sacrificed their own safety and security to stop this horrendous attack and chased down the suspect, which ultimately led to saving the life of this young girl and taking a dangerous criminal off the street,” said Dan Kelso, deputy chief of the Whitehall police.
“They acted as heroes, plain and simple,” Kelso said.
That’s not the way Scott Bryant, 32, and Kenneth Kosobud, 34, see themselves.
“We’re just two country boys trying to help out,” Bryant said.
Whitehall police didn’t identify who came to the girl’s rescue, but people who live in their Whitehall neighborhood by the corner of Doney Street
and Beechrun Road pointed them out.
Bryant and Kosobud are from Ashland, Kentucky, and came to Columbus within the past year to start new lives for themselves and their families. The two friends said they were driving home together from work at a South Side auto-salvage yard shortly before 4:30 p.m. Tuesday when they saw their neighbor, Matt Burns, chasing a teenager down Doney Street near Beechrun Road.
Burns yelled to them to pick up the pursuit. Bryant turned the pickup truck around and raced after the fleeing teen. Burns was at work Wednesday night and unavailable to talk about the incident, but his father confirmed that his son had helped the other two save the girl.
According to Bryant and Kosobud, Burns told them that he had come up on the boy holding the girl down and stabbing her. Burns stopped the attack and the boy got up and ran, he said. Burns then chased the teen for about a quarter-mile.
Bryant and Kosobud, in the truck, caught up with the boy, then got out of the truck and chased him toward a creek underneath a Doney Street bridge.
“I was dead on his heels and I was able to clip him a little bit,” Bryant said. “He did
a belly-buster in the creek.”
The boy got up and immediately insisted that the girl had stabbed him. “Show me the wounds,” Bryant yelled back at him.
Kosobud said he told him: “All I see is blood on your sleeves and a knife in your hand.”
Then the teenager admitted he’d stabbed the girl, Bryant said. He dropped the knife into the creek, Bryant and Kosobud said.
Kosobud said they were worried the boy might pick up the knife again, so they ordered him out of the creek and told him to sit up next to a fence near the creek bank.
“I told him: ‘extend your legs, cross your ankles and put your hands on your head,’” Kosobud said.
Within a minute or so, Burns came upon the scene with Whitehall police officers in tow.
The two friends reflected Wednesday evening on the events from the day before.
“I’ve had a pretty awful mental day myself, just thinking about the severity of the situation,” Bryant said.
Kosobud said he didn’t think what they did was unusual.
“I hope someone would do that for me,” Kosobud said.