HAMLET — Police had their community outreach plans interrupted this weekend when a bleeding victim showed up at the station.
Capt. Randy Dover said officers were prepping for an adopt-a-block event just after 10 a.m. Saturday when 46-year-old Eric Dean Cheek walked up to the Hamlet Police Department with a laceration on his chest.
Dover said Cheek first told them that he had been the victim of a home invasion at his McDonald Avenue home.
However, his story changed several times before investigators determined that his wounds were from a domestic dispute, Dover said.
The woman who stabbed him, 54-year-old Yim Man Cheng, originally from Hong Kong, allegedly cut him with a broken mirror, resulting in the need for medical treatment and stitches, according to a warrant.
Cheek is also accused of hitting Cheng and causing injuries to her head.
Both were arrested and held over the weekend.
Cheng was charged with one misdemeanor count each of assault with a deadly weapon and assault inflicting serious injury. Cheek was charged with assault on a female.
Both were released Monday on unsecured bonds.
Court documents show Cheng was not fingerprinted by a law enforcement officer and is considered a flight risk.
Both Cheng and Cheek were given a firearm prohibition noticed and ordered not to have contact with each other..
They are scheduled to appear in court Feb. 3.
Records with the N.C. Department of Public Safety show a long list of convictions for Cheek from the western side of the state.
He spent more than a year in prison when his probation was revoked on a 1990 larceny conviction in Haywood County.
From December of ‘98 to August of ‘99, Cheek was convicted four times of seven charges in two counties: possession of a Schedule VI controlled substance, driving while impaired, driving with a revoked license, and assault on a female in Haywood County; possession of drug paraphernalia, driving with a revoked license and driving while impaired in Buncombe County.
His probation was revoked on those convictions and Cheek went back to prison, being released in April 2000.
While incarcerated, Cheek was convicted of assault on a female, child abuse and communicating threats in Haywood County. Records show the assault and child abuse happened while he was in prison.
Cheek was convicted of another DWI in 2001, once again resulting in a probation revocation and he went back behind bars for another three months, records show.
He was again convicted of a DWI in January of 2009 and spent most of the last five months of that year behind bars following another revocation.
His most recent conviction was in 2009 for resisting a public officer.
The last three convictions were all in Haywood County.
Court records show Cheek has had two DWI cases in Richmond County dismissed.
All defendants facing criminal charges are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
