| STABBED 24 TIMES AFTER RACIAL COMMENT? - Mineral County officials say an argument over clothing and race may have incited a violent altercation that left a Keyser man hospitalized with 24 stab wounds over the weekend.
Twenty-five-year-old David Gillaspie was in ICU, expected to survive.
Deputy Sheriff R. J. Wingler said that five teens were drinking alcohol at Gillaspie's home. All were white, when a racial comment apparently sparked the violence.
Gillaspie apparently began making comments that the others dressed like they were black.
Gillaspie's racial comments apparently led one of the two girls at the party to shove him to the floor. He was then repeatedly stabbed by James Houdersheldt, while being kicked and beaten by James Citarelli. Both suspects are 18 and from Keyser.
Police found Gillaspie laying in his driveway.
Bond has been set at $100,000 for Houdersheldt and $50,000 for Citarelli's.
Both were charged with malicious wounding and Houdersheldt faces the additional charge of attempted murder.
YOUNG CHARLESTON WOMAN STABBED - Charleston police are looking for a man who they suspect stabbed a young woman in her downtown apartment.
Nalisha Gravely, 18, flagged down a patrol car at about 3:30 a.m. in the 700 block of Washington Street East, saying she'd been stabbed in her apartment
She was crying and covered in blood.
Gravely told police she was stabbed by Desmond Clark, a man she had been with at Club Hypnotic on Sissonville Drive earlier that night.
The woman said Clark had become jealous at the club and, after returning to her apartment, he knocked her down, threatened her with a knife, held her down by the neck and stabbed her.
Gravely told police she was able to escape when Clark got distracted, climbing out a window and then hiding between buildings until she spotted a police cruiser.
Police filed a malicious-wounding complaint against Clark.
SELF DEFENSE TO MURDER - The Mercer County Sheriff's Department arrested 57-year-old Milton E. Justice of Princeton and charged him with first-degree murder.
Justice is accused of killing 37-year-old Luther Vane Byrd of Bluefield a week ago.
Byrd's body was found outside the home of a former girlfriend.
Detective L. M. Murphy says police initially believed Justice shot Byrd in self-defense because a pocket knife was found in the victim's hand.
Police discovered that the knife was planted.
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