Man accused of stabbing woman in court

WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) - Calling the crime egregious, a district court judge threw bail guidelines out the window during the arraignment for a Bristol man accused of stabbing his a former co-worker nine times.

Christopher Amaral, 33, was ordered held on $100,000 bail with surety during Monday morning's court proceeding inside Kent County Court in Warwick.

Charged with assault with intent to murder, Amaral is accused of attacking former co-worker Andrea Wilmot, 21, outside her Garden St. home in Cranston early Saturday morning.

"I am going to go ahead and exceed guidelines due to the egregiousness, frankly, of the conduct here," the judge said.

Police said Wilmot was getting out of her car around 2 a.m. when Amaral approached her from behind. When Wilmot refused to go for a walk with Amaral, police said he grabbed her violently and stabbed her in the arms, chest, shoulder and neck. One of the blows even severed Wilmot's neck vertebrae, police said.

"The worst wound was in the neck. They had to operate on the neck, there's a broken vertebrae in the neck and take some pieces of metal out of it that was lodged in there," the victim's father David Wilmot told Eyewitness.

Emergency crews rushed Wilmot to Rhode Island Hospital, where she is said to be recovering from serious, but non life-threatening, injuries.

Police said Wilmot identified Amaral as her attacker. She told them he had been calling her all night and that she suspected he vandalized her car while she was at Twin River with her sister.

"This guy was just a weirdo, a stalker. He had this fascination with her and he wanted her to go out with him, and she didn't want to go out with him and wanted nothing to do with him," David Wilmot said.

Earlier reports had said Amaral and Wilmot had dated, but Wilmot's family told Eyewitness News Monday that was not the case.