UPDATE: The Millington Police Department says they’ve cleared Brian Conley in the unsolved stabbing case. They said they checked his employer records and realized he was at work in Nashville when the attack in Millington took place.
MILLINGTON, Tenn. — It’s been two months since a woman was stabbed more than 20 times at a Millington mental health facility. After a possible break in her case, she’s speaking out for the first time.
No arrests have been made in the stabbing at Professional Care Services on Navy Road, but police finally have something that could lead to a suspect.
“If he had a sharper knife, I would be dead,” the stabbing survivor told WREG.
She said the morning of Oct. 7 changed her life forever when a man she’d never seen before tried to kill her in the parking lot of the facility.
She asked to not show her identity for her own safety.
“When I got out of my vehicle, I turned to him,” she said. “He was walking up behind my vehicle, and I said, ‘Hello sir.’ He didn’t say anything to me.”
She said he walked away without saying a word. Thinking he left, she said she got out of her vehicle to head into work but suddenly felt what seemed like someone punching her in the back.
“He was stabbing me from behind,” she said.
She said the they struggled for what seemed like an eternity. She said if it wasn’t for a garbage truck pulling into the parking lot and scaring him off, she may be dead.
“I remember laying in the parking lot on the concrete to trying to grab my phone to call 911,” she said. “And I was having trouble breathing.”
She now carries 26 stab wounds and a constant fear for her life.
“Every day I’m afraid that I’m going to hear on the news that somebody else was stabbed just like this,” she said.
Unfortunately, a similar incident did happen, but this time in Nashville.
Brian Conley, 31, is charged in the murder of Melissa Hamilton. She too was stabbed multiple times at the therapy center where she worked.
Millington Police Chief Mark Dunbar said the similarities are disturbing.
“We’ve not put all the pieces of the puzzle together, but we do have reason to believe the incidents are tied into each other,” Dunbar said.
Dunbar said Conley is a person of interest in the Millington stabbing, but he’s still working to connect all the dots.
“We need closure for this victim, especially if he is the individual responsible for her incident on October 7th,” Dunbar said.
WREG found that Conley does have a past history of violence in the Memphis area.
Dunbar said he has been in communication with Metro Nashville Police, and he plans to conduct his own interview with Conley in the near future.