Woman testifies ex-boyfriend stabbed her multiple times

CEDAR RAPIDS - A 24-year-old woman testified Tuesday that after Jerry Matthews, her former live-in boyfriend, pushed her into a glass table she felt five 'blows” to the back of her head Jan. 5.

At first, it felt like he punched her. She didn't feel the knife.

'He said in a scream that I have never heard before ‘Look what you made me do.'”

Matthews, 29, is on trial this week for attempted murder, willful injury, assault with intent to commit sexual abuse and assault while displaying a dangerous weapon (domestic abuse). He is accused of repeatedly stabbing the woman in the neck and head Jan. 5, according to the criminal complaint. The woman had life-threatening injuries.

The woman will continue her testimony 9 a.m. Wednesday in Linn County District Court. The trial is expected to last through Thursday.

The woman said they had a 'rocky” relationship throughout their six years together. They had two children together and Matthews would move in and out at different times.

The woman described several incidents when Matthews would slap her in the face, once giving her a black eye, choking her, pushing her backward into the shower and another time punching her in the stomach when she was pregnant with their first child.

She wasn't in a romantic relationship at the time of the stabbing but Matthews was staying in her apartment for about a week and was sleeping on the sofa.

The night before she was stabbed, Matthews threatened to commit suicide, she said. He said he took some pills and had a box cutter. She talked him down and went to work the next morning, but when she got home about 6 p.m. no lights were on in the house. She became nervous and scared.

The children were asleep and she found Matthews sitting in the bathroom. He told her to stop talking online to another man and that he wanted them to be a family and if they couldn't, he was going to 'kill himself.”

He wanted to spend one night as a family. She agreed but then after the children went to bed, he tried to have sex with her. She refused and they fell asleep on the sofa.

When she awoke he said he took a 'bunch of pills.” He then said he wanted to 'make love” one last time before he died.

She told him she didn't believe him about the pills and he became angry. Matthews then went into the kitchen and came back with a knife.

'He told me I was going to give him what he wanted,” the woman said as she started tearing up. 'He told me to be quiet or he was going to kill me.”

She begged him to stop but he made her strip and then he started taking off his clothes. He set down the knife when he started taking off his shirt and she grabbed it and ran into the bedroom, toward the front door of the apartment.

She screamed for help and he grabbed her hand that held the knife and pushed her away from the door and into a glass table. He then stabbed her several times and then left the room. She then got to the door and went to a neighbor's apartment across the hall for help.

Jeremy Elges, Matthews' attorney, on cross asked if she had hit or slapped Matthews.

The woman admitted to slapping his face a few times. One time she slapped his face when she came home from work and found him in bed with another woman.

Elges also questioned her about the knife. He asked if Tuesday was the first time she said when she dropped the knife.

The woman said no.

Altamesa Walker, who lived across the hall from the woman and testified earlier about her coming to her door and she was screaming and there was blood everywhere. Walker called 911 and the call was played for the jury.