Sailor recalls shipmate ‘slicing my throat’

[unhappycamper]

Sailor recalls shipmate ‘slicing my throat’
By Andrew Scutro - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Aug 13, 2008 22:38:09 EDT

NORFOLK, Va. — The victim was halfway through a ham and cheese omelet when someone grabbed him from behind. The next thing Seaman Jose Garcia said he could feel was something against his neck.

“He was lifting me out of my chair and slicing my throat at the same time,” he said in a courtroom on Naval Station Norfolk.

Seaman Richard Mott is charged with attempted murder after allegedly slashing and stabbing Garcia with a pocket knife on the mess deck of a berthing barge the morning of March 8, 2007, while his ship was undergoing repairs. A witness said Mott cut Garcia from his throat to temple, then stabbed him again, giving him a sucking chest wound and cutting open his abdomen.

“I saw people going crazy. Blood was all over the place,” said Senior Chief Hospital Corpsman Patrick Modglin, who testified that he treated Garcia at the scene before civilian medical personnel arrived. It was Garcia’s third day with the ship, the cruiser Cape St. George.

Wednesday was the first and last day of Mott’s Article 32 proceeding, after which the Navy could decide to drop the charges, punish him administratively or take the case to court-martial.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/08/navy_mott_hearing_081308/