Johnnie Simpson had been dealing with mental-health issues before he allegedly stabbed his girlfriend in the neck, took a preteen hostage and triggered a police standoff in St. Johnsbury last week, according to law enforcement documents.
Those affidavits are among records filed in Caledonia Court providing a detailed account of the Nov. 26 incident, which ended when Simpson surrendered and was arrested after three hours holed up inside a home on Caledonia Street that day.
Simpson, 44, is now being held without bail on charges of first-degree domestic aggravated assault, aggravated assault and second-degree unlawful restraint.
Screwed door shut, police say
The episode began around 6:50 a.m. that day, records show.
A Vermont State Police trooper arrived at a home on Moose River Drive in town to find Simpson’s girlfriend with blood covering her chest and hands, according to an affidavit. She was holding a blood-soaked cloth to her throat.
The girlfriend told the trooper she had been putting dishes away when she slipped and fell on a knife before driving from the Caledonia Street home to the Moose River Drive house, where relatives live, the record shows.
“Looking at the wound, I knew this was not physically possible,” wrote the trooper.
As EMTs took the woman away by ambulance, the trooper received word about the apparent hostage situation and left for Caledonia Street.
There, a relative of Simpson’s told him the woman had come to the Moose River Drive house that morning. She said Simpson stabbed her, according to the affidavit.
Family members had been trying to get Simpson help recently because “he is having mental issues, which have gotten worse the last few days,” the relative said.
The relative drove to the Caledonia Street home and smashed open the door, trying to get Simpson to give him the preteen, according to the affidavit. But Simpson refused, the relative told the trooper.
After the alleged stabbing, Simpson barricaded himself and the preteen inside an upstairs room of the home, fixing the door to its frame with screws, authorities say.
VTDigger does not generally identify victims of domestic abuse and is limiting descriptive information about the preteen.
‘In need of mental health help’
At about 8:30 a.m., a St. Johnsbury police officer left the scene outside the house to interview the girlfriend at Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital.
The woman had a cut on her throat 3 or 4 inches long, the officer wrote in an affidavit. She appeared weak and said she was tired.
She claimed again that the injury happened when she fell on a knife, but would not elaborate. She declined to explain why she didn’t ask Simpson to help and instead drove to the house on Moose River Drive.
She became “very emotional” when told about the apparent hostage situation. The officer asked why Simpson would be keeping the preteen hostage. The woman responded that “he was in need of mental health help.”
Negotiator, reporter brought in
Back on Caledonia Street, a St. Johnsbury Police Department sergeant had been brought in to negotiate Simpson’s surrender.
“I asked Simpson what had happened to make him feel like he needed to barricade himself and [the preteen] in the room,” the sergeant wrote in an affidavit. “Simpson went on to state something to the effect of how [the girlfriend] made him do it. Simpson stated that he was arguing with [the girlfriend] and that he grabbed a knife and ‘hit her with it.’”
Simpson made several references to hitting or cutting the woman with a knife, the sergeant wrote, as did another officer in an affidavit.
At some point, police summoned longtime Caledonian Record crime reporter Todd Wellington to the scene as part of a negotiating strategy. Officers brought him inside the house because, the paper reported, Simpson wanted to tell someone his story. But police ultimately changed plans.
‘I could’ve killed her if I wanted to’
The three-hour standoff ended when Simpson agreed to release the preteen and gave himself up, according to court records.
Then, the officer who interviewed the woman in the hospital interviewed Simpson at the St. Johnsbury police station.
“I attacked her,” Simpson said, according to the officer’s affidavit, after saying the woman “controlled” him.
The officer asked Simpson if he wanted to harm the woman.
“I could’ve killed her if I wanted to,” the man said, adding, “I did hurt her, yes, on accident.”
Simpson said he used a straight kitchen knife during the incident, the officer wrote.
Police searching the Caledonia Street home later that day found a “folding utility knife” and several red stains around the building, search warrant records show.
In court that day, Judge Mary Miles Teachout ordered Simpson not to have any contact with the woman or the preteen. She ordered him held without bail, and as of Wednesday he remained in Northeast Regional Correctional Facility.
