Fugitive in fatal stabbing captured
POTTSTOWN » Police have apprehended a man wanted for the stabbing death of a 35-year-old man in July.
According to the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office and Pottstown Police, Steven Holmes, 54, who was wanted by police for just over three weeks, has been arrested in relation to the stabbing death of Diamonde Stone, 35, of Pottstown.
At 10:32 p.m. on July 30, Pott-
stown Police responded to the 300 block of High Street for a reported fight and found Stone suffering from apparent stab wounds, according to the affidavit of probable cause. He was immediately provided medical care but was later pronounced dead at Pottstown Memorial Hospital. Police interviewed witnesses including a neighbor whose apartment overlooked the crime scene. The witness told police that he heard screaming coming from outside. When he looked, he saw four people including “a black male who was kneeling on top of and beating a white male who was lying face up on the ground,” court documents said. He told police that at one point the white male made a movement where his hand went “straight up to the black male, and right after that, the black male got up, holding his chest.”
The witness additionally told police that when the white male stood up, he had something shiny in his hand. The black male was bleeding heavily and walked across the street. He held onto a wall and collapsed, the witness said. The two other individuals he saw were a man and woman who were trying to separate the two, according to authorities.
Another witness police spoke with said that she had invited a couple known to her as Carolyn and Steven Holmes into her home to stay overnight on the night of July 29. She had just met the couple Saturday and they had told her that they had a car but it doesn’t work, police said.
The witness said she heard a disturbance on the sidewalk but didn’t know what it was. Following the incident on Sunday, the witness told police that Carolyn came into the apartment and that Steven arrived about 30 seconds later with blood on his arm. Steven then told her that he had gotten into an argument over $20 with “Clutch,” a name by which the witness knew Stone went. She told police that Steven then said he stabbed “Clutch” in the arm. Shortly after, one of the woman’s roommates told her that “Clutch” had died. She then told the couple to speak with police and that they couldn’t stay in her apartment, police said. They then left through the back door and left behind a black bag containing the couple’s clothes and personal items.
Officers later collected the bag, which contained prescription pill bottles and documentation for Steven Holmes, as well as a black Tshirt with suspected blood and an Aquos cell phone determined to belong to Steven Holmes, police said.
An arrest warrant was issued for Holmes on Aug. 1. He was aware he was wanted and fled the Pottstown area, according to the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office. Police located him on Lehigh Avenue in Philadelphia Tuesday night and took him into custody.
Holmes is charged with first degree murder, third degree murder and possessing an instrument of crime. He was arraigned before District Judge Edward C. Kropp and was remanded to Montgomery County Correctional Facility without bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 5 before Magisterial District Judge Edward C. Kropp Sr.