Wednesday, December 5, 2001
The fight moved outside after the kitchen table got knocked over.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- A knock-down, drag-out club-and-knife fight between a South Side couple -- he's 6 feet 2, she's 5 feet 3 -- sent both to a hospital.
The injuries to 67-year-old Lawrence Coward Sr., who wielded the knife, included severe blows to his head and face from a 21/2-foot club, Patrolman Dan Mikus said. Coward had bruises on his arms, cuts on his nose and a golf-ball size lump in the center of his forehead by the time police broke up the fight Tuesday.
Kimberly R. Mack, who wielded the club, had been stabbed in the back. The 37-year-old woman was in stable condition at St. Elizabeth Health Center.
Coward walked away from the hospital sometime Tuesday, despite a hold placed on him and his girlfriend by Mikus and Patrolman Bill Golec. Detectives were expected to arrest Coward today and Mack when she is released from the hospital.
Combatants: The scene the officers said they found when they pulled up to Mack's West Philadelphia Avenue house included Coward with a bloody 3-inch pocket knife and Mack with a bloody club yelling and swinging their arms at each other as two friends tried to keep them apart. Coward and Mack began yelling out their stories when they saw the officers.
Coward told police that he'd been hit three to five times with the club.
"No b---- is going to hit me like that and get away with it," Coward said, according to Mikus' report. "You guys saved her life because I was trying to cut her heart out!"
Mack said Coward stabbed her after she beat him with the club, according to reports.
Police considered Mack the initial aggressor but noted that Coward had the opportunity to flee once the fight, which started inside the house, moved outside to the driveway. At some point, police said, Coward became aggressive, too, and was not merely defending himself.
While still insde, the combatants knocked over the kitchen table.
Coward, who lives on West Dewey Avenue, told police that he'd gone to Mack's house about 8 a.m. and they began drinking. He said the fight started when he wanted to leave and pick up a friend.
meade@vindy.com