GRANITE FALLS, Wash. - Jamie Checkos is a survivor. Her father says he raised some tough kids, and that saved the 28-year-old’s life.
Jamie fought off a brutal attack earlier this month at the hands of a woman prosecutors described as the jealous lover of her ex-boyfriend.
“I wasn't going to die and that was my mission when she came at me,” Jamie said recalling the morning she was lured to a desolate parking garage in Kirkland.
Patricia Lynn Crowl has been charged in the case. Prosecutors say Crowl's boyfriend had borrowed her cell phone and when he gave it back to Crowl, she found out he had been texting Jamie.
Kirkland detectives say detectives say Crowl then pretended to be the boyfriend and used the phone to set up an elaborate ambush, where she attacked Jamie and left her for dead after stabbing her 24 times.
Jamie never knew it was Crowl - and not the ex boyfriend sending the messages. Only now in hindsight she says something just didn’t feel right.
“I should have followed my instincts instead of my emotions," she said.
Jamie’s father, Jim, says his daughter is healing nicely. And his shock over the situation is turning to anger.
This isn't Crowl's first violent run in with the law. In 1997 she was sentenced to 13 years for killing a Tukwila woman she believed was involved with her then-boyfriend. Crowl was granted early release after serving just nine years.
“The big question that comes to mind is why is a person that commits murder, who has served as short a sentence as she did, been released to society?” asked Jim Checkos.
For now Crowl is being at the King County Jail on $3 million bail. Jamie and her family says they will do whatever it takes to help prosecutors not only get a conviction in this case, but to make sure Patricia Crowl never goes free again.
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