Woman Charged With 2nd Degree Murder In St. Paul Stabbing
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – A St. Paul woman has been charged with murder after she allegedly stabbed her boyfriend to death Thursday.
Natalie Jonelle Pollard, 33, has been charged with one count of murder in the second degree.
According to the criminal complaint, at 4:34 a.m. Thursday St. Paul police responded to a call of a domestic situation in the 600 block of Burr Street.
Dispatch informed police that the caller said a man had broken into her home and was currently locked in the basement with a knife. A few moments later, dispatch told police that the man had been cut and medics were needed.
Upon arrival, police found Pollard in the living room. Her shirt was covered in blood.
Police said officers also found a large amount of blood at the top of the stairs and on the stairs leading down to the basement. At the bottom of the stairs, officers found a 30-year-old man with a stab wound to his chest.
He was unconscious and his breathing was irregular. The man was then transported to Regions Hospital where he later died.
St. Paul police did an initial sweep of the home and could not locate any weapon.
According to the criminal complaint, Pollard said her boyfriend had shown up at the residence at 12:30 a.m. Thursday; she had left the door unlocked for him.
After returning home, Pollard said he was playing music loud while she was trying to sleep. She asked him around 2:30 a.m. to be quiet after the noise woke her up. Pollard said he smelled like alcohol. They began to argue and she told him to leave. She said he left and she locked the door behind him.
Pollard then said at around 4 a.m. she heard the door handled and found that her boyfriend had removed the screen from the window, pushed it open and unlocked the door by reaching through the window.
According to the criminal complaint, Pollard gave several inconsistent reports on what occurred after her boyfriend broke in through the window.
At first Pollard told officers that she didn't know where the knife came from, then that her boyfriend had it downstairs and then that he had it when he broke into the home. She finally admitted that she was the person with the knife.
Police said Pollard admitted, after questioning, that when he entered the home the second time she followed him downstairs with the knife. She said she kept the knife for protection because he had hit her before, although she had not reported it.
She said when she got to the basement he came at her and they began "swinging" at each other. She admitted to swinging the knife and said she must have cut or stabbed him while swinging the knife.
Police said she told them she threw the knife into the kitchen garbage before officers showed up. On a second search of the home, police found a black-handled knife in the kitchen garbage can.
A provisional report from the Ramsey County Medical Examiner's Office determined the cause of death exsanguination due to a stab wound to the chest.
If found guilty, Pollard faces a minimum of 40 years in prison.
