Police report sheds new light on Tech stabbing details

Thanks to a Louisiana Tech University police report filed in district court in Ruston, there is now a more complete picture of what took place before, during and after the Nov. 13 stabbing attack at Tech’s Lambright Sports & Wellness Center that led to one woman’s death and injured three others.

Filed as evidence against Jacoby Johnson, the 23-year-old Tech student accused in the stabbing, the incident report details the sequence of events from that morning, as pieced together by investigators from witness interviews and Lambright security camera footage.

The narrative reinforces and fills gaps in accounts of the incident that witnesses, victims and law enforcement have previously shared with the Leader and other media.

Charged with one count of second- degree murder and three counts of attempted second-degree murder, Johnson is innocent until proven guilty under the law. Johnson’s involvement in the following recounting of events remains alleged.

Around 9 a.m. on Nov. 13, Tech student Dominique McKane has just finished helping instruct a senior water aerobics class in the Lambright’s indoor pool and heads to the locker room.

Soon after, other senior exercise classes at the facility also dismiss. Retired 3rd Judicial District Judge Cynthia Woodard, local artist Annie Richardson and retired educator Debby Hollimon are among those preparing to leave those classes.

Investigators know from camera footage that Jacoby Johnson enters the Lambright from the west-side doors at 9:01 a.m. After briefly walking through the building, Johnson approaches 21-year-old Tech student Joel Grimble from behind at the equipment checkout desk and tries to pickpocket Grimble’s phone.

Grimble and Johnson snatch the phone back and forth until Grimble recovers his device and walks into the red basketball gym.

Grimble sees Johnson following him into the gym, pulling something out of his pocket that Grimble recognizes as a pocketknife once Johnson opens the folding blade.

“Grimble said that Johnson grinned at him and continued toward him, so Grimble ran from the gym and toward the east entry doors,” the report states.

On his way out of the building, Grimble shouts to employees at the checkout desk, “You need to call someone. He has a knife!”

By this time, McKane, Woodard and Richardson are descending the walkway out of the east-side Lambright doors.

In her interview with the Leader published last week, McKane said her first sign that something was wrong was when Grimble sprinted past her and hurriedly drove out of the parking lot, though she didn’t know his name.

All this has taken place in less than seven minutes since Johnson entered the Lambright.

Now he exits the eastside doors and down the walkway after Grimble. He encounters Woodard and Richardson and attacks them, stabbing Woodard in the right side of her neck and stabbing and cutting Richardson’s neck and throat multiple times.

McKane hears the women’s screams from the end of the walkway and confronts Johnson, shouting at him to stop.

He turns on her. They end up on the ground in the parking lot as Johnson stabs McKane multiple times. McKane escapes and tries to get to the Lambright doors, but Johnson pulls on her shirt, eventually catching her and attacking with the knife again.

Sometime during Johnson’s scuffle with McKane, Woodard and Richardson escape and flag down 18- year- old Tech student Colin Campbell, who’s driving his truck in the parking lot.

Campbell later told Tech police that Woodard asked him to drive the pair to Northern Louisiana Medical Center in Ruston, saying they couldn’t wait for an ambulance. He agreed to do so.

Back at the Lambright entrance, Hollimon hears McKane’s screams and confronts Johnson as he attacks McKane for the third time outside of the doors.

Johnson turns his attention to Hollimon with a blank stare as McKane makes it inside the Lambright at last. She receives first aid from Lambright staff as they attempt to stop the bleeding from multiple wounds to her head, neck, arms and upper torso.

Outside, Johnson cuts Hollimon across the face below her eye, and Hollimon watches the man walk down the walkway and sit on the steps at the corner of the outdoor pool wall.

At 9:08 a.m. Tech police are notified of multiple 911 calls about a stabbing at the Lambright. Officers with Tech police, Ruston city police and the Lincoln Parish Sheriff’s Office respond to the scene.

Around that time, Campbell calls 911 as well, saying he’s on the way to NLMC with Woodard and Richardson. Tech officers head to the hospital, including Assistant Chief Bill Davis, who wrote the incident report.

A witness later told officers they saw Johnson get up from the pool steps once sirens could be heard and start walking south toward nearby campus apartment buildings.

Descriptions of the assailant are given to dispatch and responding officers when they arrive. Tech officers find McKane inside the building, and she provides a description of Johnson’s clothes.

Other officers head south of the Lambright to the area around West Alabama Avenue. Cpl. Corbin Porter sees a man matching the description walking across Alabama, heading south.

He stops the man outside the Kidd campus apartment complex and handcuffs him. It’s Johnson, with a fresh cut on his right hand and a knife in his coat pocket, which Porter recovers.

Meanwhile, the ambulance service of the Ruston Fire Department is dispatched to the Lambright. Upon arriving, they request a medical helicopter for McKane to airlift her to the Ochsner LSU Health hospital in Shreveport. Hollimon refuses treatment, as she wasn’t badly hurt.

McKane’s recovery and experience from her perspective are detailed in a Ruston Leader report published Nov. 20 at rustonleader.com and the Nov. 22 print edition.

Meanwhile, when Davis arrives at the NLMC emergency room, Woodard and Richardson are already being treated.

Woodard is conscious and speaks briefly with Davis about the incident. Richardson is unconscious.

“ER personnel were vehemently involved in extreme life saving measures with Mrs. Richardson,” Davis wrote.

Davis finds Campbell and interviews him. Campbell says Richardson was bleeding profusely from her neck when they flagged him down, and then she collapsed in the backseat during the drive to the hospital.

After being apprehended, Johnson is taken to the hospital to treat the cut on his hand. Davis learns this and finds him at the ER, where he’s handcuffed to a gurney and accompanied by an officer.

Davis tells Johnson his Miranda rights and asks him if he’s willing to speak about the incident without an attorney. Johnson says yes.

Johnson confesses to the stabbings, saying he started after one “dude with an afro” and then saw a blond woman outside and attacked her and others. Richardson was blond.

Johnson tells Davis he didn’t plan the attacks but suddenly “snapped, felt stressed, and got really angry,” saying he was stressed from school.

He tells Davis he was on his way to the Tech dining hall when he was apprehended. When Davis asks if he might have attacked more people there, Johnson replies, “probably so.”

Woodard is later transported by ambulance to the Shreveport hospital in case her condition worsened.

Richardson “ underwent lifesaving CPR at least once while in the ER” and later underwent surgery before being airlifted to the Shreveport hospital as well, according to the police report.

She died the following evening.

McKane was discharged on Nov. 14, and Woodard followed on Nov. 15.

Johnson remains in the Lincoln Parish Detention Center without bond, awaiting evaluation by a sanity commission to determine if he is mentally fit to continue through court proceedings. Court records show he has a sanity hearing slated for Jan. 23, 2024.

Prosecutors with the 3rd Judicial District Attorney’s office filed a bill of information on three attempted seconddegree murder charges on Nov. 15.

One of Johnson’s four initial arrest charges was changed to second- degree murder after Richardson died. Charges that could include a life sentence, like murder, require a grand jury indictment.