{"id":47287,"date":"2021-04-20T22:35:53","date_gmt":"2021-04-21T04:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/man-accused-of-stabbing-girlfriend-in-january-pleads-guilty\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:37:44","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:37:44","slug":"man-accused-of-stabbing-girlfriend-in-january-pleads-guilty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/man-accused-of-stabbing-girlfriend-in-january-pleads-guilty\/","title":{"rendered":"Man accused of stabbing girlfriend in January pleads guilty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Wheat\"
Wheat<\/span>Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A man accused of stabbing his girlfriend, endangering a child and stealing his former wife\u2019s car pleaded guilty to second-degree assault Tuesday morning in district court in Cortez.<\/p>\n

Christopher Wheat, 29, was charged earlier this year by the 22nd Judicial District Attorney\u2019s Office with attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault, felony menacing, aggravated motor vehicle theft, child abuse and obstructing a police officer.<\/p>\n

Wheat accepted a plea deal from the 22nd Judicial District. The remaining charges will be dropped after sentencing as part of the deal.<\/p>\n

The usual range of jail time for second-degree assault, a Class 4 felony, is two to six years. But the district attorney\u2019s office added a crime of violence sentence enhancer. In Colorado, judges may impose enhanced sentences on individuals convicted of violent crimes if the offender used a deadly weapon or caused serious bodily injury.<\/p>\n

Wheat will also have mandatory parole for at least three years.<\/p>\n

According to an incident report from the Cortez Police Department, Wheat allegedly stabbed his girlfriend, Ashley Jeter, on the night of Jan. 5.<\/p>\n

He then allegedly stole his ex-wife\u2019s car at knife-point and drove off, returning an hour later and broke into his former wife\u2019s home.<\/p>\n

When police arrived, Wheat grabbed his 3-year-old son and held him between the officers and himself. He pointed a knife at officers and retreated farther into the home.<\/p>\n

Wheat eventually released the child after numerous commands to let him go and locked himself in a bathroom.<\/p>\n

Wheat finally complied with police, dropped his weapons and was placed into custody.<\/p>\n

Wheat told officers he had taken some \u201cbad drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeter was taken to Southwest Memorial Hospital and treated for \u201cserious bodily injury\u201d from the stab wounds, according to the incident report.<\/p>\n

A sentencing hearing was set for July 1 at 10:30 a.m.<\/p>\n

anicotera@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

sentenced to up to 12 years in prison<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-47287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87154,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47287\/revisions\/87154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47287"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=47287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}