Utah newlywed among 4 stabbed near Vegas Strip

Lee Stanford, charged in random stabbing at Harmon and Koval, Aug. 8.

A newlywed was back home in Salt Lake City and facing more medical tests, her mother said Monday, after being stabbed in the back in what authorities called a random attack on four people on a sidewalk just off the Las Vegas Strip.

Laralynn Stock Caldwell, 20, was honeymooning with her husband, Jackson Caldwell, when she was stabbed in the lower back late Thursday as the couple walked on Harmon Avenue, Diane Stock told The Associated Press.

Laralynn Caldwell told police she thought a man punched her in the lower back, and she didn’t realize she was wounded until she reached back and felt blood.

Her husband told KTNV-TV in Las Vegas that he thought a man slapped his wife’s backside, but he also saw what he thought was a fake knife in the man’s hand.

The couple returned home to Utah on Friday, where Diane Stock said her daughter was in good spirits but faces ongoing tests to rule out the possibility of blood-borne disease.

“She works at Staples. She’s joking that now she has (surgical) staples in her back,” Diane Stock said. “She’s doing great.”

The accused attacker, Lee Anthony Sanford, 53, surrendered to Las Vegas police at a fast-food restaurant minutes after the 11 p.m. Thursday attack. Police say he had a nine-inch kitchen knife and was bleeding from a cut on his hand.

Sanford remained jailed Monday pending a court appearance Tuesday on multiple battery with a deadly weapon charges that could get him decades in prison.

Police said they found no prior connection between Sanford and the people he’s accused of attacking.

Also injured were a 56-year-old woman who underwent surgery Friday for a stomach wound, according to police; a 25-year-old man who reported that he was stabbed in the elbow and lower back; and a 15-year-old boy who was with his parents when he said he felt something hit his shoulder.

Sanford, who is black, told police that he thought white people kept bothering him because people like to mess with the poor, according to a police report.

He said he retrieved the knife at home after walking away from a verbal sidewalk altercation with a man he described as white and a bully.

Police said Sanford also was sometimes incoherent during a police interview following his arrest.