Left inset: Jonathan Blake Chaney (WAFF/YouTube). Right inset: Nicolas Trombetta (Marshall County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The Albertville, Alabama, apartment complex where the stabbing took place (WAFF/YouTube).
An Alabama man who had allowed a recent acquaintance to stay in his apartment for several days was cooking steaks and watching television with him when the guest allegedly slashed his throat and stabbed him in the back, authorities said.
Nicolas Trombetta, 25, has been charged with attempted murder, according to Marshall County Sheriff’s Office jail records.
Jonathan Blake Chaney, 30, told Huntsville-based NBC affiliate WAFF that he was the victim, recounting the terrifying moments surrounding the alleged attack.
Authorities said Chaney was at his apartment complex in Albertville on June 12. Trombetta was reportedly there as well after the two men had recently met and Chaney agreed to let him stay at the residence for a few days.
Chaney said they had been cooking, “hanging out watching TV,” and talking about going kayaking the next day before the situation abruptly turned violent.
“I was caught off guard, because we went from cooking steaks … to you just slit my throat, you know, and so of course I get up, start trying to grab my phone off the nightstand, and that’s just when he just starts stabbing me in the back,” Chaney told the station.
The men then fought, according to the report, until Chaney collapsed to the floor. He indicated that, in that moment, his instinct to survive kicked in.
“I just remember thinking, ‘you cannot die like this,’ Chaney said. “The whole time I was fighting him, that’s what I was thinking.”
Chaney got the knife away from Trombetta and fought back. Officers with the Albertville Police Department responded to the scene and said both men were still there.
Chaney — with more severe injuries than Trombetta — gave his side of the story, authorities said. Officers spotted a kitchen knife covered in blood in the apartment’s bedroom.
An investigator said that a camera inside the apartment would have captured the entire attack, but two hours beforehand, Trombetta had faced it the other way.
The defendant is being detained in the Marshall County Jail without bond.
