State charges Bellingham nursing assistant already suspected in attempted murder of woman
A Bellingham man suspected of stabbing the 87-year-old Whatcom County woman he had taken care of for years in the neck in April has been charged with unprofessional conduct by the state’s Nursing Assistant Program.
The Washington State Department of Health announced the charge against Joshua John McDonald in a release Wednesday, Aug. 3. Notice of the state’s charge was sent to McDonald on July 8, and he has an opportunity to defend himself, according to the statement of charges.
McDonald, 29, was charged April 25 in Whatcom County Superior Court with attempted first-degree murder and is currently scheduled to stand trial beginning Sept. 12. Jail records show McDonald is being held in lieu of $1.5 million bail.
As previously reported by The Bellingham Herald, deputies were called at 11:51 p.m. April 24 to the victim’s home on Hannegan Road for a report of a stabbing, according to court documents, after McDonald called 911 and stated he had a “psychotic break and stabbed (the victim) in the neck.”
Court documents described the victim as an 87-year-old woman and that McDonald had worked as her full-time caregiver for “several years.”
McDonald was first certified as a nursing assistant in 2019, according to the Washington State Department of Health’s credential records, but that certification expired Aug. 8, 2021.
A caregiver cannot practice without certification, Department of Health spokesperson Frank Ameduri told The Herald in an email at the time, and the case management team planned to review the incident.
According to court documents, McDonald told 911 dispatchers that the victim “should be gone,” and that he had wheeled her wheelchair outside and stabbed her in the neck with a knife, adding that he “started to slit her throat, stopped, then at another point picked up the knife and stabbed it directly into (the victim’s) neck.”
Deputies found an 8.5-inch kitchen knife with some blood on it on the ground in front of the home when they arrived, court documents state, and McDonald called out from inside the home and was taken into custody outside. The victim was found inside the home with a bleeding cut across her neck and a stab wound on the left side of her neck.
The victim was taken to the hospital, where doctors found the cuts across her neck and a stab wound were relatively shallow.
Deputies spoke to the victim at the hospital, who reported seeing “an evil spirit in him,” shortly before McDonald told the victim “you’re going to die tonight.”
