Man pleads not guilty to stabbing friend
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
A Vancouver man pleaded not guilty Tuesday to first-degree attempted murder for allegedly stabbing a friend who “sent him to prison a couple years ago.”
Clark County Superior Court Judge John Wulle set bail at $750,000 for Joshua Michael Stranz, 28. He remains in the Clark County Jail.
Trial was set for May 3.
Stranz, who was apprehended March 1 in Portland, was extradited here Friday.
He is charged in the March 1 stabbing of Michael Osborne, 40, with whom Stranz once had an intimate relationship, according to papers filed in Superior Court.
Osborne told investigators he believed he was stabbed because he “sent (the suspect) to prison a couple years ago,” according to court documents.
Stranz was released from prison in January after serving a 43-month sentence for second-degree robbery relating to the holdup of a female clerk at a Vancouver fireworks stand in June 2006. Court papers did not say how Osborne was connected to the case.
At about 12:30 a.m. March 1, Vancouver police officers responded to a house at 1633 S.E. 84th Court., where the two men had been guests, and found a sleeping bag and T-shirt soaked in blood. Osborne had lacerations on his head, arm and chest, and was rushed to Southwest Washington Medical Center. He was released later that day.
Osborne told officers that he and Stranz met at the house and had cake together. Afterward, Stranz began giving him a back massage, but then started allegedly choking, punching and stabbing him with a steak knife, according to the court documents. Stranz then fled.
Stranz was spotted by officers at a MAX platform in Portland that morning and taken into custody.
Laura McVicker: 360-735-4516 or laura.mcvicker@columbian.com.
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