Police: Suspect Said She Wished She Had Been Connecticut School Shooter

A Burnsville woman has been charged with stabbing a man through the hand, then telling police officers that she wished she had been the man who killed 26 people at a Connecticut school last week because she “understood” him.

Theresa Marie Navratil, 52, is charged with two felonies: third-degree assault resulting in substantial bodily harm and making terroristic threats, each of which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Navratil is also charged with two misdemeanor counts of domestic assault, for which the maximum penalty is 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Police were called to Navratil’s apartment in the 2100 block of Cliff Road just before midnight Dec. 15 after the victim reported that he had been stabbed in the hand, according to the criminal complaint.

Officers found the victim in the apartment with a bloody towel wrapped around his hand, and a large amount of blood in the kitchen. Navratil was no longer on the premises.

The victim said he and Navratil had been out drinking together earlier in the evening, and they began to argue on the way home. During that argument, she repeatedly tried to hit him in the face, told him she hated him and his family and threatened to kill him, the victim said.

The victim thought the argument had cooled by the time they got home, so he went to bed. Navratil began to hit him and scream obscenities at him, then got up and went to the kitchen, according to the complaint.

The victim followed Navratil to the kitchen, where she grabbed a knife from a drawer and brandished it at him. When he put up his left hand to block her, she cut him, according to the complaint.

The victim told Navratil that he was going to call police, and Navratil dropped the knife, got dressed and left. He said Navratil had stabbed him once before, but he didn’t report it, and he told police that she gets violent only when she drinks.

The victim’s injury required stitches. Police collected a number of knives from the apartment as evidence.

Officers tracked down Navratil and arrested her. During the trip to the police station, she hurled obscenities at police, telling an officer that he should “die and burn in hell,” according to the complaint.

During the trip to Hastings, Navratil said she wished she had been the Connecticut school shooter, and that she understood him, the complaint charges.

Navratil remains in the Dakota County Jail on an $80,000 bond. An omnibus hearing in her case is scheduled Jan. 8 in Dakota County District Court in Hastings.