Woman sentenced for daytime stabbing

Defendant used kitchen knife to injure woman on downtown street

NORRISTOWN >> A Pottstown woman is on her way to a state prison after she admitted to using a kitchen knife to stab and injure another woman during an encounter on a downtown street.

Bryanna Gomez Van Wyk, 29, of the 400 block of North Charlotte Street, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to 5 to 10 years in the State Correctional Institution at Muncy after she pleaded guilty to a felony charge of aggravated assault in connection with the July 11, 2022, knife attack.

Judge Thomas M. DelRicci, who accepted a plea agreement in the case, ordered Van Wyk to have no contact with the victim.

Van Wyk will receive credit for the time she has been in jail since July 12, 2022, while awaiting court action on the charges.

The investigation began about 5 p.m. July 11, when Pottstown police responded to the area of King and North Charlotte streets for a report of a stabbing. Police made contact with the victim who they observed was bleeding through her clothing from puncture wounds to her left arm and back, according to the criminal complaint filed by Pottstown Police Corporal Todd M. Istenes.

The victim reported that she was in the 200 block of King Street when she was approached by a woman, later determined to be Van Wyk, who uttered something about her “boyfriend” and then displayed a large knife and began stabbing her, according to court papers. The victim, according to court documents, told police she knew Van Wyk’s boyfriend and had met Van Wyk on one or two prior occasions.

A witness to the stabbing told police that Van

Wyk uttered “you’re going to say this about my man,” as she stabbed the victim.

The victim fled the area on foot and was later transported to Reading Hospital by ambulance to be treated for her wounds. Police said the victim suffered four stab sounds to her left arm and upper back and shoulder.

Detectives obtained video surveillance footage from the 200 block of King Street that recorded the attack.

“As the female approaches the victim she is seen carrying a large kitchen knife with a black handle. She is seen stabbing the victim multiple times with the knife before the victim runs away,” Istenes wrote in the criminal complaint.

Other charges of possession of a weapon with intent to employ it criminally, simple assault and recklessly endangering another person were dismissed against Van Wyk as part of the plea agreement.