PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A Portland man who stabbed his pregnant wife because she threatened to leave him over his drug use has been sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison.
Brian Shaun Nickel had been using the animal tranquilizer ketamine when he attacked the woman, Elaine Winn, in July. Winn was three months pregnant. She later divorced him and gave birth to a healthy baby last month, but she continues to suffer from the tendons in her hands that were severed as she tried to defend herself.
Winn ran out of the house but collapsed in the driveway after being slashed in the neck, arms, legs and abdomen. Police arrived to find Nickel standing on the porch and yelling that he had stabbed his wife.
The Oregonian reports that Nickel apologized when he was sentenced in Multnomah County Circuit Court on Friday. Winn did not attend.
