Woman accused of stabbing man with scissors, beating another woman in west Spokane

Police say a “highly intoxicated” woman attacked two people Friday evening in an industrial area in west Spokane, nearly puncturing a man’s lung with a pair of scissors and likely costing a woman one of her eyeballs.

Court documents paint a bloody and chaotic scene and suggest that a spatula may also have been used as a weapon.

At about 7:20 p.m. police received a report of a man hitting a woman with a stick at an apartment at 518 S. Elm St. Minutes later, officers responded to another call at a nearby McDonald’s on South Maple Street, where they found Willard Crazymule with stab wounds on the back of his neck and on his chest, one of which “was deep enough to touch his lung, but did not puncture it,” according to court documents.

“Officers were unable to obtain a story from Willard because he was rushed off to the hospital via ambulance,” court documents state.

Witnesses pointed officers to 45-year-old Marcie Jo Michael, who had been “after” another woman, Rena Hilde, according to court documents. Michael admitted to police that she had been chasing Hilde into the apartment, and that Crazymule wrestled Michael to the ground while attempting to defend Hilde, court documents state.

Michael also admitted that she stabbed Crazymule “in self-defense” before fleeing the apartment, according to court documents.

Hilde later told police that she and Crazymule were at the apartment at about 7:20 p.m. “when they were both assaulted by the defendant for an unknown reason,” according to court documents. Hilde said she had been “struck repeatedly in the head with an unknown item.”

Hilde ran to another apartment building at 2008 W. Sunset Blvd. to get help, but Michael followed her and an apartment resident had to chase Michael away, according to court documents. Hilde had wounds on her head, face and right eye, which medics said was ruptured and would likely have to be removed, court documents state.

Police found Michael near a rail bridge on South Cannon Street and she initially lied about the scissors, saying she had left them in a pickup truck near the apartment on South Elm Street, according to court documents. After an officer pressed her, she removed the scissors from her pocket.

“The scissors had blood on them and they were obviously a part of this assault,” the officer wrote.

Back at the apartment, officers found “large amounts of blood” in an alleyway and pooled on the floor inside. There was also a metal blade and a barbeque spatula, which “may have been used in this assault,” court documents state.

Michael had wounds on her hands and was taken to Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center for medical clearance, then booked into jail on two counts of first-degree assault. The hospital did not respond to an inquiry about Hilde and Crazymule’s conditions on Monday.

Michael has at least two prior assault convictions.

In 2002, she pleaded guilty to third-degree assault after she and a man beat a woman who had walked past them in downtown Spokane. Court documents say Michael struck the victim in the forehead with a rock, leaving a black-and-blue lump the size of a golfball.

In 2006, Michael and another woman, Lisa Ann “Pebbles” Michael, admitted they had beat a man in an effort to keep him from testifying against Michael’s boyfriend in a second-degree murder case. Lisa Michael was sentenced to a year in jail; Marcie Michael, to eight months.

Court documents don’t indicate whether Michael knew either of the victims in Friday’s assault.