A Waco woman is facing a first-degree felony charge after police say she stabbed her friend's disabled son twice following an earlier dispute that ended at a laundromat, even as she insists she was defending herself. Charlotte McMillon was arrested and charged with injury to a disabled individual with intentional serious bodily injury following the stabbing, which happened last Wednesday evening in the 2000 block of 21st Street in Waco.
According to an arrest affidavit cited by KWTX, a Waco police officer was dispatched to the area around 7:34 p.m. last Wednesday and found McMillon inside her vehicle. She told the officer she had stabbed her friend's son in self-defense after he attacked her, the affidavit states. The location sits near the 2000 block of South 21st Street, an area that includes Blair's Cove Apartments, a 256-unit complex roughly two miles from Baylor University, according to reporting from Multi-Housing News.
The affidavit lays out a chain of events involving an argument between McMillon and the victim that ended at a laundromat. The victim's mother reportedly rolled down her window and told her son to help unload clothes, at which point McMillon got out of the car to inspect her windshield. The affidavit states the victim then threw an iPad at the windshield.
Conflicting Accounts Of What Happened Next
McMillon claimed the victim approached her and chased her around the vehicle, prompting her to grab a knife from under the driver's seat. She told police the victim pinned her against the vehicle before she stabbed him twice, then drove away and called police herself, per the affidavit detailed by the same station's report.
But the victim's mother gave officers a starkly different version, telling them McMillon exited the car with a knife, taunted her son, and stabbed him twice. Surveillance footage referenced in the affidavit reportedly backs that account, showing the victim throwing the iPad before McMillon exited the vehicle with a knife, approached him and stabbed him twice. After the stabbing, the victim walked back to the apartment complex near 21st Street.
Why The Disability Classification Raises The Stakes
The charge against McMillon carries severe consequences because the victim is legally classified as a disabled individual under Texas law. Under Texas Penal Code Section 22.04, intentionally or knowingly causing serious bodily injury to a disabled individual is a first-degree felony punishable by 5 to 99 years or life in prison and a fine of up to $10,000, according to Goldstein & Orr. The statute defines a disabled individual as a person who, because of age or a physical or mental disease, defect, or injury, is substantially unable to protect or defend themselves or provide for their basic needs.
That same statute divides offenses against vulnerable people into four felony classifications based on intent and harm, ranging from state jail felonies for negligence up to first-degree felonies for intentional serious injury, the firm notes. Notably, Texas Penal Code Section 12.47 excludes these first-degree felonies from statutory hate crime enhancements, while a separate provision, Section 22.04(m), establishes an affirmative defense if a defendant did not know and could not reasonably have known the victim was disabled, according to FindLaw.
The Legal Hurdles Facing A Self-Defense Claim
Texas law includes Castle Doctrine protections involving occupied vehicles. Separately, Section 9.31 outlines the state's Stand Your Ground protections, which remove any duty to retreat before using defensive force, as long as the person has a legal right to be there and did not provoke the confrontation, according to Concealedcarry-ed.com.
However, those protections have limits. Under Texas law, self-defense claims fail if the defendant provoked the encounter or responded with force disproportionate to the threat faced, such as using deadly force against a non-deadly action, according to attorneys writing for Lawyer. The competing accounts and surveillance footage remain central to the self-defense dispute as the case proceeds.
What Comes Next In McLennan County
The case will proceed through McLennan County's legal process. Whether the surveillance footage described in the affidavit will be enough to undercut McMillon's account of being cornered near her vehicle remains an open question that will play out as the case proceeds through McLennan County's legal process.
