Man charged with stabbing ex-wife said he’d never lay ‘a hand in violence on her’
A 32-year-old Bonney Lake woman viciously attacked in front of her three young children had too many stab wounds to count, records say.
Pierce County sheriff’s detectives believe her ex-husband, 36-year-old Roger Woodard, assaulted her in a bedroom.
Neighbors found the victim in her backyard on 138th Street East about 9:50 p.m. Thursday.
“The neighbor indicated that he heard (the victim) calling for help and the children were also calling for help because of their mother’s injuries,” prosecutors wrote in charging papers.
The children, ages 9, 3 and 1, were not injured. They were placed in protective custody.
When deputies arrived, they said they found blood in the bedroom, on the stairwell and on floors and walls throughout the house.
The victim suffered multiple stab wounds to the face and body.
A neighbor reported seeing Woodard crawling over a fence in the backyard near where his ex-wife was found.
Deputies used drones, K-9 units and air support to search for Woodard in the wooded area near his family’s home but were not able to find him.
Later that evening, Woodard allegedly knocked on the door of a home mere blocks away to ask for help.
He’d been injured in the attack on his ex-wife, sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said, and was treated at a local hospital.
Prosecutors have charged Woodard with attempted first-degree murder with a domestic violence enhancement.
Woodard pleaded not guilty at arraignment in Superior Court on Monday, and Commissioner Craig Adams set bail at $1 million.
The couple married in New York in August 2013 and have two children together.
Woodard’s ex-wife first filed for divorce in December 2015, but they eventually reconciled.
In October 2017, she again filed for divorce and said she was afraid of her husband.
When Woodard found out she wanted to leave him, “He became agitated, aggressive, unreasonable, hostile, verbally abusive and physical with me,” his ex-wife wrote in divorce filings.
He allegedly took two security cameras from the home when he gathered his belongings and was escorted from the house by deputies.
His ex-wife said Woodard shoved her, threw things and broke dishes.
“I will have no peace if he is allowed to return,” she wrote.
Woodard countered by saying he worked three jobs to support the family but had lost one job and was living in his car.
He said a proposed parenting plan denying him time with his children was filled with “cruelty.”
“I have never laid a hand in violence on her or on our two children and never would,” Woodard wrote.
This story was originally published September 30, 2019 at 10:41 AM.
