Timothy Charles Stiles, 41, remained in custody Friday, October 2, charged with severly cutting his victim before stabbing himself in the neck as deputies worked to take him into custody.
Stiles, of 10021 Lakewood Highway, Mineral Bluff, faces two felony charges, one for aggravated assault and a second for aggravated battery, according to warrants sworn out in the case by Georgia Bureau of Investigatioin (GBI) Agent Jamie Abercrombie.
According to a report filed by Fannin County Deputy Sheriff Richard Gazaway, he was dispatched to 10051 Lakewood Highway Monday evening, September 28, shortly after 6:30 p.m. He was told a man was bleeding from the stomach.
When he arrived, a group of people were standing near the roadway and flagged him down. A female yelled the victim was by the house, which was later determined to be Stiles’ residence.
Gazaway, along with deputies Jesse Godsey and Erin Sehl, found the victim, Kenneth Paul Arnold, 33, with severe lacerations to his face, chest and stomach, and “visible intestines coming from the lacerations to his stomach,” Gazaway’s report said.
When an EMS ambulance arrived to treat Arnold, and after deputies cleared the house to make sure a suspect was not inside, Gazaway questioned Arnold’s girlfriend. She had left the residence where the stabbing occurred to go to a neighbor’s house and call for help. Gazaway’s report said the girlfriend could only identify the suspect as someone named Timothy.
Investigations Captain Justin Turner said information was then gathered indicating the suspect was known to travel in the area of the Lakewood intersection (Highway 515 and Georgia 60) and had been seen walking in that direction after the incident.
It was a little more than two hours since the initial call was made to the Fannin County 911 Center that deputies Sehl and Matthew Peardon located Stiles hiding underneath a camper behind the Valero gas station at the Lakewood intersection. Turner said investigators believe he walked the little more than a quarter mile to the station.
Sheriff Dane Kirby said that as deputies tried to coax Stiles out from under the camper he began stabbing himself in the neck with a knife.
Deputies were able to remove him from under the camper, disarm him, and stop the bleeding until a Fannin County EMS ambulance arrived.
Stiles was flown to a Gainesville, Georgia, hospital, where he was treated and released 24 hours later to Fannin authorities, Kirby said.
Arnold remained hospitalized from his wounds.