Woman, 31, charged with assaulting relative

WINNSBORO – The first call came in to dispatch about 1:30 a.m. on March 31.

“It happened at Washington Highlite Club, Sharonda Richards cut Charlene Sanders with blade, driving blue Honda to FMH,” the caller stated.

The second call came in about 20 minutes later from Sharonda Richards. She said there was a fight at the club and requested a deputy meet her at her residence.

Richards

Charlene Monique Sanders, 28, told the responding officer when he arrived at Fairfield Memorial Hospital (FMH) that she was at the Washington Highlite Club on Jackson Creek Road when Sharonda Richards bumped into her inside the club. Sanders said, according to the report, that the two women began to argue, the altercation subsequently moved outside where they began to fight and Richards “pulled a knife and started slashing her [Sanders] in the face and arm.”

Sanders said blood began to run down her face and that she was transported by two friends to FMH where she was treated for a deep laceration from over her left eye to her left ear and injuries to her right hand and wrist, the report stated.

Sanders reportedly told the deputy that she and the defendant are relatives and that the incident was an ongoing occurrence precipitated by the two women dating the same man. That man was also one of the two people who transported Sanders to the hospital, the report stated, and who remained with her while she was being treated.

At the same time, the defendant, Richards, 31, was being treated for a swollen right eye at Richland Memorial Hospital in Columbia and was reported to be sending threatening text messages to the man Sanders had told the deputy both were dating and who was with her at FMH.

Following treatment, Richards also gave a brief statement to the deputy, claiming that after the two women began fighting and had fallen to the ground, she [Richards] pulled a folding utility knife with a razor for the blade from her bra and began swinging the blade, cutting Sanders.

Asked by the deputy if she was targeting a particular area of the victim’s body, Richards reportedly told the officer, “I was just swinging my blade.”

Richards was arrested on April 2, and charged with aggravated assault. She was released from the Fairfield County Detention Center on a $10,000 surety bond.