After telling man to evict roommate, cops stood outside as he stabbed her up to 50 times
The Wichita man charged with fatally stabbing his roommate because she wouldn’t move out attacked her with a knife up to 50 times while police officers were standing outside of his house, a document newly released by the court says. The stabbing happened moments after police spoke with both the man and his roommate and suggested he evict her.
Jason McCaleb repeatedly stabbed 28-year-old Devin Andrea Cook with “a folding blade knife” on Nov. 23 while officers were close enough to hear yelling, furniture being thrown and Cook begging for the assault to stop, according to an arrest affidavit released Friday.
One of Cook’s pleas police heard: “You’re killing me,” the affidavit says.
The Wichita Police Department did not answer a question Friday about whether the officers were concerned for Cook’s safety before they left that morning.
The officers went to McCaleb’s home, 2464 S. Washington, early on Nov. 23 after McCaleb called 911 at 4:09 a.m. saying Cook had “threatened to kick down his door” and that “he let her keep her stuff at his house but she was refusing to leave,” the affidavit says.
Police during a news briefing after Cook’s slaying said officers told McCaleb that morning that they couldn’t make Cook leave immediately because she had “established residency there,” including keeping clothes there and having house keys. They told McCaleb he had to use legal channels to evict her if he wanted her gone.
During that news briefing, police said officers left the house and returned when a fight between the roommates turned physical.
But the affidavit says the officers “were standing outside” and “heard yelling coming from the house” after they talked to McCaleb and Cook about their living arrangement. Cook, the affidavit says, was asleep in a bedroom when police first showed up at 4:46 a.m. She told them she didn’t want to move and “there was not any issues that she was aware of.”
McCaleb told the officers he would talk to his landlord “about getting her out,” the affidavit says.
After the officers walked outside to leave, they “heard the female (Cook) voice say ‘Jason stop.’ ‘You’re hurting me.’ ‘You’re killing me,’” the affidavit says. They also heard what sounded like furniture being thrown, it says.
The officers “attempted to make contact (with McCaleb and Cook) but no one would answer the door and the disturbance continued,” the affidavit says. “The officers told the occupants (of the house) they were going to force the door and the male (McCaleb) voice said he was coming to the door.”
When McCaleb opened the door, the officers saw blood on his clothes and hands.
Cook was lying on the kitchen floor “covered in blood with multiple wounds to her body and arms,” the affidavit says.
An ambulance took her to Ascension Via Christi St. Francis hospital, where she died at 6:52 a.m.
A doctor noted up to fifty “sharp force injuries” on her body during an autopsy examination, the affidavit says.
Officers handcuffed and patted down McCaleb after he opened the door. McCaleb told the officers he had “the weapon” in his pants pocket when police asked whether he was armed, according to the affidavit. Officers found a “folding blade knife” with blood on it in McCaleb’s pocket, it says.
When police interviewed McCaleb after the stabbing he told officers that after police walked out of his house, “Cook came out of her room and was standing in the kitchen door.”
“He said she told him the police wouldn’t make her leave. Mr. McCaleb said he ‘snapped’, pulled out his knife,” opened it and approached Cook, the affidavit says.
“He said she looked at him like she did not believe he would stab her so he stabbed her in the side and then started stabbing in an overhand manner into her chest, head, and neck,” the affidavit says.
He also told police he stabbed Cook’s back and eyes, it says.
McCaleb told the police during the interview that “he heard the officers knocking at his door but did not want them to stop him from killing Ms. Cook. He said he was trying to kill Ms. Cook,” according to the affidavit.
The Wichita Police Department did not comment on the contents of the affidavit. Police spokesman Officer Paul Cruz referred The Eagle to a Nov. 25 press release that says officers who responded to the call determined “no crime had been committed” when they talked with Cook and McCaleb following the 911 call.
McCaleb’s defense attorney, Casey Cotton, declined to comment on the case.
McCaleb, 44, is charged with first-degree premeditated murder in Cook’s death. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in February and is being held in the Sedgwick County Jail in lieu of $700,000 bond.
This story was originally published December 13, 2019 at 1:15 PM.
