A man who held a woman at knifepoint last year was sentenced to four decades for aggravated robbery last week.
Washington pleaded not guilty and has since appealed his conviction.
The Collin County district attorney, Greg Willis, characterized Stephon Washington as a “female predator bent on continuing to terrorize women.” He said he hopes Washington’s conviction will allow women in the area to feel safe.
The sentence stems from a 2021 McKinney crime. The woman reported that she was jogging in Towne Lake Park on July 10, 2021, at around 5:30 a.m. when Washington snuck up on her from behind and put a knife to her throat. She testified he then dragged her into a restroom, threw her on the floor, demanded money, and told her to take off her shirt.
In the course of the incident, she said, he dropped his knife, cut himself, and fled after telling the woman to “consider herself lucky.”
Police matched the DNA from blood at the scene to Washington’s, arresting him only hours after the attack, the jury heard during the trial. Judge Rayburn Nall presided over the case.
Prosecutors revealed that this was not Washington’s first alleged act of violence toward women. He currently has two pending felony charges in Denton County.
The prosecution mentioned that a month before the assault at Towne Lake Park, he allegedly broke into a family’s home after seeing the husband leave for work.
He reportedly entered the house through a window, grabbed the mother, and told her two daughters to leave the room. The woman managed to escape and call 911, and the suspect, allegedly Washington, fled. Investigators reportedly lifted one of his fingerprints from the window.
In 2019, prosecutors said, Washington allegedly assaulted a motel housekeeper at gunpoint.