A Burlington man was charged early Thursday with stabbing a deaf man after an altercation sparked by a misunderstanding over sign language, police said.
The incident occurred at around 5:10 p.m. Wednesday on East Morehead Street. Burlington police received a call for help at Maple Avenue and Miller Street from Burlington Fire Department personnel who were on the scene. The victim was transported to Alamance Regional Medical Center and then transferred to UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill for multiple stab wounds. At the time police issued a press release Thursday, the victim was listed in stable condition.
Witnesses told officers that the victim, Terrance Ervin Daniels, 45, of 921 Graham St., had been in an altercation with another man on East Morehead Street. Police said Daniels then walked over to the intersection of Maple Avenue and Miller Street, where emergency personnel found him injured in the grass.
A warrant was obtained for Robert Jarell Neal, 22, of 715 E. Morehead St. He was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury and felonious assault on a handicapped person. At around 12:16 a.m., with the assistance of the Elon Police Department, officers found Neal in Elon and he was taken into custody without incident.
Burlington Police staff Sgt. Mark Yancey said investigators determined that Daniels was walking with another deaf man down East Morehead Street using sign language. Yancey said that Neal had mistaken the sign language for gang signs, stabbing Daniels.
A resident living near the site where the stabbing occurred said she saw Neal in her neighborhood after the incident.
Cathy Sanford of Maple Avenue said on Thursday she was inside her home Wednesday when she heard her dog barking. Sanford said when she looked in her back yard she saw a man later identified as Neal running through it. It was about four minutes after the stabbing incident.
Sanford said Neal came through her back yard again later in the evening and threatened her 12-year-old granddaughter. Sanford said she reported the incident to the police and had been interviewed by investigators.
Sanford said she wasn't home when the threat was made against her granddaughter. When she returned from running errands, Sanford said her granddaughter told her that a man had threatened her and their dog when she was in the back yard putting the dog away for the night.
Yancey confirmed on Thursday that Sanford had spoken with Burlington police about the incident.
Neal was processed at the Burlington Police Department and transported to the Alamance County jail, where his bond was set at $500,000 secured.
Copyright 2013 - Times-News, Burlington, N.C.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
