Parolee sentenced for random attack on restaurant manager outside Wichita brewery
A parolee who randomly stabbed a woman walking to her car after an evening out in Old Town in 2021 has been ordered to serve 19 years in prison.
Jeffery Elam, 29, of Wichita, was convicted by a jury in May of attempted second-degree murder and aggravated battery in the Nov. 21, 2021, stabbing outside of Norton’s Brewing Company, 125 N. St. Francis. Sedgwick County District Judge Christopher Magana sentenced Elam on Monday to 228 months in prison, followed by three years of post release supervision, said Dan Dillon, a spokesman for the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office.
“He must also register as a violent offender,” Dillon said by email.
Elam’s attorney, in a written motion, asked the court to be lenient and depart from the state’s sentencing guidelines, saying his client “was under extreme mental or emotional disturbance” at the time of the stabbing and he can be treated with programs outside of the prison system.
Police and prosecutors have said the 22-year-old woman was by her car, in the 100 block of North St. Francis, after an evening out with friends when a masked stranger — later identified as Elam — started chasing her around midnight. She ran toward Norton’s, but the man “grabbed her, turned her around and stabbed her” as she got to the brewery door, an affidavit released by the court says. He ran off afterward.
Bystanders, including employees at Norton’s, ran to the woman’s aid after hearing her screams, court records say. One even followed Elam to the entrance of an alley but stopped because he wasn’t sure if Elam still had the knife, the affidavit says.
The victim, a longtime local restaurant manager, suffered a lacerated liver that needed emergency surgery to repair, The Eagle previously reported. In an interview after the attack, Autumn Haverkamp told The Eagle she had gone out with friends in Old Town after work but split off from the group early.
Wichita police, who released a photo of the suspect to the public in an effort to help identify him, used surveillance video footage from nearby businesses to determine where Elam ran. He was arrested at the Lord’s Diner, 520 N. Broadway, the next evening after an officer working an off-duty job there saw Elam in the same plaid pajama pants and shoes that the stabbing suspect had worn.
Police also found on Elam a fixed-blade knife that had the woman’s DNA on it, court records say.
Elam was on parole in two cases when he stabbed the woman, Dillon said. Both were for child sex crimes, records show.
He has two additional criminal cases scheduled for jury trial in August. In those, he’s charged with battering a law enforcement officer and trafficking contraband into a correctional institution, Dillon said.
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