Man stabbed grandma because she criticized his laundry skills, affidavit says
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- Wichita man charged with first-degree murder after stabbing his grandmother.
- Affidavit says argument about laundry sparked attack and multiple neck wounds.
- Court orders mental competency evaluation before trial; bond set at $500,000.
The Wichita man who is charged with fatally stabbing his 64-year-old grandmother repeatedly in the neck and throat over Labor Day weekend told police he did so after getting into a fight with her “about her criticizing how he does his laundry,” according to a probable cause affidavit.
Isaiah Langkiet told Wichita police he had been living with Elvera Langkiet at 861 S. Fern, near Seneca and McCormick, for about a week before the Aug. 30 stabbing and that her complaints “caused him to be angry,” the affidavit says.
He told police “he slapped Elvera on the face with an open palm” and then “grabbed a brown handled kitchen knife” with an 8-inch blade from a kitchen countertop and used it to stab her in the neck, according to the affidavit. He then stabbed her again as she fell to the floor.
Langkiet told police after his grandmother fell, “he was ‘pissed off’ and walked away” from the house without providing any aid to her. He walked to his father’s nearby home with the intention of stabbing him, too, but left after no one answered the door there, the affidavit says he told police.
Langkiet told police that while he was walking through some alleyways, he decided “to help Elvera by calling 911.” He told 911 dispatch that he had fought with and stabbed his grandmother, according to the affidavit.
He returned to his grandmother’s house and saw her on the kitchen floor, “but did not check on her and chose to stay on the porch until officers arrived,” the affidavit says. He told police they could find the knife on an electrical box in a nearby alley.
When a detective asked Langkiet why he had stabbed his grandmother, Langkiet said “he was tired of the loud noises she caused in the morning and was bitching at him,” according to the affidavit.
Asked what he thought was going to happen to his grandmother after the stabbing, he replied: “If you go to stab someone, they die, right?”
When police arrived at 861 S. Fern around 9 a.m., they found Elvera Langkiet “lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor,” bleeding profusely from her upper torso and neck. She was alive and able to tell police on the ambulance ride to the hospital that her grandson had stabbed her, saying he “has ‘demons’ and voices in his head that tell him what to do, and something was wrong with him,” the affidavit says.
She also said her grandson made several comments about wanting to “go back to jail.”
Medical staff who evaluated her at the hospital found two “near fatal” stab wounds on her neck and the front of her throat that were each three-quarters of an inch wide and three to four inches deep, the affidavit says. They also found a laceration on her spinal cord that caused paralysis.
Initially, doctors expected Elvera to survive. But she refused further medical treatment and had an underlying health condition that prevented her from coughing up fluid in her lungs, “essentially causing a drowning effect,” according to the affidavit.
She died at the hospital on Sept. 3 from complications associated with the stab wounds.
Isaiah Langkiet is charged with first-degree premeditated murder in the case. Earlier this week, a Sedgwick County judge ordered Langkiet to undergo a mental evaluation after his lawyer said a mental or psychological illness had impaired “his present ability to understand the nature of the charges, the proceedings against him, and to meaningfully assist counsel in preparing a defense,” court records show.
New court dates will be set if Langkiet is deemed competent to stand trial. He has not yet had an opportunity to enter a not-guilty or other plea.
Langkiet remained in the Sedgwick County Jail on Thursday, an online log of inmates shows. His bond is set at $500,000.
