Mortal Danger
sister. The ambulance crew administered lactated Ringer’s solution to Amy to keep her veins open, but they silently shook their heads. She had no blood pressure and a fluttering rapid pulse. Her pupils were already beginning to dilate.
By the time Amy Jager arrived at the emergency room, she was in severe shock, near death, and she no longer had any pulse at all. She was breathing only in sporadic gasps. She had no heart sounds. ER doctors inserted an airway and tried everything in their power to bring Amy back, but their efforts were in vain.
Five minutes later, Amelia Jager was pronounced dead at the age of twenty-seven.
Jill, who was left-handed, had suffered lacerated tendons in that hand. Her cuts were so deep that she could notflex her fingers. She would require extensive surgery to try to bring her hand back to any kind of normal functioning.
The Port of Seattle Police Department had four detectives, and Detective Sergeant Dave Hart was on call that Sunday morning. Hart, who retired as a lieutenant from the Seattle Police Department to join the Washington State Patrol Drug Control Assistance Unit, came to Chief Moloney’s department with a wealth of experience. Now he would try to piece together the events leading to the incredible stabbing that had left one woman dead and another terribly injured.
He talked to an airport shuttle driver who had seen a tall, bearded man struggling with Amy. Before this witness could react, the attacker had suddenly stepped behind the dark-haired woman and placed his left arm around her neck while he grasped a large knife in his right hand. Pulling her tightly against him as the shuttle driver watched, horrified, he had made a sweeping left-to-right movement across her stomach and the driver saw blood gushing out. The driver had leaped from the bus and called for help on his walkie-talkie as he raced to stop the awful struggle. By the time he reached them, the woman was down on the pavement, while the man still held her around the neck.
“He was kneeling, still trying to hurt her,” the driver recalled. “I jumped on his back but I couldn’t get a good grip. I grabbed his left arm and we both fell backward. I pinned his left arm and pinioned his legs with mine. Then a soldier ran out to help us and he started choking the guy. Both of us together couldn’t get him off her.”
Heinz Jager had continued to fight them, and the soldier had growled, “Knock it off!”
There had been no lack of good Samaritans trying to save Amy Jager. The soldier was Sergeant John Dimsdale of North Carolina, who had been sitting inside with Sergeant Leonard Tatum of Georgia. Dimsdale told Dave Hart that he had watched the silent tableau through the window.
The women standing there were both pretty, both dressed in slacks and light blouses. “I saw the man try to kiss the smaller woman, and she stepped back away from him.
“He grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her toward the car. The other woman came to help and both women tried to push him away. He hit the little one with the flat of his hand. When I rushed out, I saw the knife had blood on it. The shuttle driver ran to help and I grabbed the guy’s throat and held him till the police came.”
Sergeant Tatum had somehow managed to extricate Amy from the struggle and had led her to the sidewalk. She could walk at that point, but he’d seen the blood just above her navel and between her breasts.
“Another guy grabbed the knife,” Tatum said, “and threw it out into the middle of the road.”
Amy’s brother told Dave Hart of his sister’s attempt to escape her life with her jealous husband.
“We all went to the airport to protect Amy. Heinz was talking to her in French. He was crying and pleading with Amy, grabbing her by the shoulders and begging her to go with him, saying he couldn’t live without her.
“I was afraid to leave Amy with him near the car but there were so many people around that I chanced it.”
He had made what seemed to be the best decision, andhe agonized that he hadn’t stayed with his sister to protect her. But he was trying to get Jager on another plane and out of their lives for good. Suddenly, he’d heard the screams and had run out to see Amy and Jill and Heinz grappling on the pavement.
“Amy was on her back and Heinz was choking her while she tried to pull his hands away. I helped the others to pry Jager’s hands off Amy’s neck.”
Heinz had seemed to have the strength of three
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