NEILLSVILLE (WAOW) – A Hillsboro teenager was jailed on $500,000 bond Thursday after being charged with trying to kill a man following a drinking game involving shots of liquor, punches to the face and an angry girlfriend, according to a criminal complaint.
Mathew Gebhardt, 17, was charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide in the stabbing attack on a 27-year-old man at a rural Neillsville home early Wednesday during a party in a garage.
According to the complaint, Gebhardt stabbed the man in the neck three times following a series of events involving the man and his wife, who were soon to leave on their honeymoon.
The woman told investigators Gebhardt “kept begging her” to drink a shot of whiskey with him so she told him she would do if she could punch him in the face, the complaint said.
“She thought he would say no but he said yes,” the complaint said.
Gebhardt advised her there could be no uppercuts and she could not hit him in the eye, the complaint said. They drank the shot and she punched him.
Then they hugged, Gebhardt told her there were no hard feelings and he left the garage, the woman told investigators.
A short time later, Gebhardt's girlfriend came into the garage, accused the woman of making “her boyfriend cry” and those two women got into a fight, the complaint said.
Gebhardt told investigators he came back into the garage, angry that his girlfriend had a bloody face, and he was pushed and grabbed around the throat by the stabbing victim, the complaint said.
Gebhardt said he got his pocketknife with a three-inch blade and stabbed the man “all in self-defense,” the complaint said.
The victim told investigators that he never touched Gebhardt before the stabbing. People at the party thought Gebhardt and his girlfriend had left when suddenly he returned and attacked the victim from behind, the complaint said.
The victim remembered hearing a woman after “the stabbing say, 'That's what you get,'” the complaint said.
The man lost consciousness, had to be given blood and was placed on a ventilator during a medical flight to a hospital in Marshfield before he underwent surgery, the complaint said.
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NEILLSVILE (WAOW) – A drinking game involving shots of liquor and punches to the face caused an argument that left a 27-year-old man stabbed in the neck three times, the Clark County Sheriff's Department said Wednesday.
A 17-year-old boy was arrested following the incident about 1:15 a.m. at a home south of Neillsville along state Highway 95, Sheriff Gregory Herrick said in a statement.
The stabbing victim was taken to a Marshfield hospital with unspecified injuries, the sheriff said.
“The argument that led to the stabbing started when a female punched the suspect after an agreement where she could punch him in the face if she drank a shot of liquor with him,” Herrick said.
No other details were released, including the names of the three involved in the incident..
Herrick did not immediately return a telephone message.