CAROLINE COUNTY, Va. – New Jersey officers arrested a suspect in a malicious wounding case at a Central Virginia gas station off Interstate 95 that left one man bloodied, and his boat and Porsche damaged.
Members of the Essex County, N.J. Sheriff’s Office, Fugitive Unit, arrested 26-year-old Angela Jones Wednesday in connection with the April 1 assault at the Carmel Church Exxon station located on Route 207, near I-95, in Caroline County.
Witnesses described seeing who they believed to be Jones, use a hammer to inflict damage to a 2016 Porsche S.U.V. and a boat being towed by the S.U.V. in the parking lot of the Exxon station.
Jones, according to officials, attacked the owner of the S.U.V. and the boat while allegedly referring to him as “rich” and “white.”
Angela Jones
Surveillance footage from the Exxon station and eye-witness accounts led to the quick identification of Jones by Caroline Deputy, A. Garthaffner, who obtained her arrest warrants.
Police in Newark said they were stunned by news of the alleged crime.
“We are kind of disappointed here,” said Essex County (NJ) Sheriff Armando Fontoura. “We’re a tolerant town. But this is nonsense."
Bob, who asked his last name not be published, and his wife had stopped at the gas station while driving back home from Florida to Massachusetts.
Bob said while he was pumping gas, a woman started screaming at him.
"This lady was a couple pumps over and talking to me and yelling at somebody about having a message for her. I had no idea what she was talking about," Bob said. "I was coming around the side of the car and next thing I know a car blocks me in. She comes out of her car gets in my face and yelling at me about some sort of message I got for her."
He said he attempted to ignore her, but she eventually threatened to put a hole in his "fancy boat."
That's when, Bob said, the woman grabbed a hammer.
Bob and Kathryn
"She actually took a hammer and she hit his vehicle and the boat," Caroline County Sheriff Tony Lippa said. "She actually clawed him. He took her down to the ground to prevent her from doing any more damage."
"I let her go and she grabbed the hammer again and hit the boat again," Bob said. "[The hammer] broke. That's when she figured out she better get out of there because she didn’t have a weapon anymore."
While Bob and the woman were struggling with each other, a witness snapped a photo of the woman's vehicle.
Bob's wife, who was in the gas station bathroom during the attack, returned to find her bloodied husband.
Attack at Caroline gas station.
"There were some racial slurs directed at her, at which time the accused spit in her face," Sheriff Lippa said. "According to the victim, there were racial slurs that were yelled at her before she spit at her and that’s what we’re looking into as far as it being a hate crime."
During the attack, the couple said the woman said she was "sick of fancy white people."
"I have no idea why she started going after us, but I guess she thought we were some rich people," Bob said.
Jones will face charges of malicious wounding, assault, and destruction of property.
