Bike path attack case held for trial
Blood found on accused assailant’s coat
By PETER BOLTZ
Express Staff Writer
The defense attorney for an accused assailant in a bike
path knife attack called evidence presented in a preliminary hearing
Tuesday "thin stew," but Magistrate Judge Mark Ingram found it
compelling enough to bind Eric Liebl over to Fifth District Court for
trial on a charge of aggravated assault.
Eric
Liebl, right, and defense attorney
Doug Nelson. Express photo by Willy Cook.
The preliminary hearing at the Blaine County Courthouse
was the first time the victim, Toni A. Lemmon, came face to face with her
alleged assailant.
Liebl, 18, is accused of attacking Lemmon with a knife on
April 16 on the Wood River Trails system just north of its intersection
with Buttercup Road.
In her court testimony, Lemmon said she was biking south
to meet a friend heading north from Hailey on her bike. Just as she was
nearing a line of trees along the bike path, Lemmon said she was knocked
off her bike by a "very hard blow" to her back or neck area.
While falling she noticed someone in a gray coat go by her
and stop just ahead of where she fell. She told the court that this was
the same coat she recognized on an "unusual" mountain biker she
had passed earlier near Ohio Gulch Road.
She said she thought he appeared unusual because of the
coat, because he wasn’t wearing a helmet, and because he was riding
southbound in the left lane.
She said no words were exchanged at the time they passed,
except that she might have warned him she was on his right.
After her assailant knocked her off her bike and passed
her, she said she saw him stop and then come back toward her.
Then, in what she described as "a shuffle of
events," she was put into a headlock and hit on the head. Her biking
helmet protected her from the blows, but the headlock strained her chin
strap so that it choked her.
She said that at another point her assailant was able to
grasp her helmet from the top and throw her to the ground, moving her
towards the tree line and the ditch next to it.
He said he was going to kill her, and when he told her he
was going to knife her, she said she started looking for a knife.
His right hand was still latched to her helmet, and when
she saw a knife in his left hand, she grabbed his wrist with both of her
hands.
At that point the attacker kneed her in the stomach a
couple of times, still trying to work her into the trees.
She said she broke away—but she doesn’t know how—and
ran "as hard as I could" south along the bike path to Buttercup
Road and then to Highway 75.
There she sat down, "choking, out of breath, hoping
someone would come along."
Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Marilyn Paul asked her
how she felt.
"I was terrified. I was afraid I was going to die and
he wanted to get me into the trees."
Defense attorney Doug Nelson, who was appointed by the
court, was able to establish that Lemmon could not unequivocally identify
Liebl by face despite an assault she estimated to have lasted three to
five minutes.
When Nelson asked her if Liebl was the man who attacked
her.
She replied, "Yes, I think so."
But under more questioning, she admitted that she
"never saw his face during the attack. I was looking at the knife, my
head was forced down. I was struggling for my life."
Still, she was certain it was Liebl because of his eyes.
"It’s real scary to look at him, and so it makes me think I’ve
seen those eyes."
Despite the defense’s ability to cast doubt on her
identification of Liebl, the prosecution offered other evidence that put
Liebl in the vicinity at the time of the crime.
Judge Ingram noted the description of Liebl’s gray
insulated coat as sufficiently identifying him "more probably than
not" as the assailant.
In addition to this evidence, the prosecution said there
was fresh blood on his coat when he was captured. Both of Lemmon’s hands
were bleeding from wounds received her fight against the attack.
Ingram said, "I am going to bind you over based on
the totality of the evidence.
Liebl remains in custody at the Blaine County Jail in lieu
of $100,000 bond. His next court appearance has not yet been scheduled.
