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Mother Of Two Stabbed In Home

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By KYLE MARTIN Hernando Today

Published: November 29, 2007

BROOKSVILLE - Debbie Kelley woke up Wednesday morning to the shrieks of a desperate woman.

Someone was banging at her front door and screaming, "I've been stabbed, I've been stabbed."

Kelley hopped out of bed and attempted to unlock the door, but the person on the other side kept twisting the knob in a frantic bid to get inside.

Finally, Kelley swung open the door and her neighbor from across the street, Karen Hoffman, fell into her arms.

"Her blue jeans and shirt were soaked with blood," Kelley recalled later. She eased Hoffman to the floor of her narrow hallway and propped her back against the wall.

Kelley was on the phone with dispatchers when Hoffman's strength gave out and she slumped onto the floor. Kelley grabbed a wet cloth and applied pressure to the wound in Hoffman's neck.

Within five minutes, a dozen cruisers had squeezed onto the shoulder of Lucas Drive, a dead end road off of West Jefferson Street, behind the Seventh Day Adventist Church of Brooksville.

Three medics crowded into the hallway of Kelley's trailer home to begin working on Hoffman. With the victim stabilized, they took her to nearby Tom Varn Park, where a helicopter flew her to a Tampa hospital. A spokeswoman for St. Joseph's Hospital said she was in critical condition.

Wednesday started as a routine morning for Lucrecia Dixson, who lives at the end of Lucas Drive. She saw Hoffman leave at her usual time, shortly after 7 a.m., to take her two daughters, ages 13 and 15, to school.

Dixson's husband left for work soon after, and on his way out he pulled over to let a pickup pass by. Dixson recognized the truck from the period when Hoffman dated Michael Clements. She thought it strange because the truck had always parked on the shoulder - never in Hoffman's driveway.

A few minutes later, she looked out the back window of her house and saw the same pickup idling in the parking lot of the church behind her house. The neighbors on the dead end street are a close-knit group so any strange vehicle is noticed, Dixson explained.

Soon after, she heard the approaching sirens and, later, the buzz of helicopters circling overhead. When she heard the news that Hoffman had been stabbed, Dixson's thoughts turned to Clements.

Hoffman and Clements had broken up months ago, Dixson said, but the time they were together was tumultuous. "There was always a lot of fighting," Dixson said. "You could hear it" coming from Hoffman's trailer.

Authorities have a warrant out for Clements' arrest on a charge of attempted murder. He was a passenger in that pickup, said investigators, who described it as a white 1999 Ford F-150, on a lowered frame, an extra cab, tinted windows, black aluminum rims and a black stripe down the side. Its Florida tag reads I30 VXA. The pickup's driver is unknown.

Clements, who is described as 6-foot-1, 220 pounds, is considered armed and dangerous.

Clements is the president of the Warlocks of Hernando County motorcycle club, but investigators do not believe Wednesday's stabbing is connected with a suspicious fire at the club's quarters Monday night. "It was a domestic situation," said Deputy Donna Black, sheriff's spokeswoman.

Reporter Kyle Martin can be reached at 352-544-5271 or kmartin@hernandotoday.com

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