A man pleaded guilty Friday to stabbing a then-13-year-old girl who blocked his attack during her younger brother’s baseball game in unincorporated Lowell.
Dimas Gabriel Yanes, 27, of Honduras, admitted to aggravated battery, a Level 3 felony. He faces 3-16 years if Lake Superior Court Judge Gina Jones accepts the plea deal.
In exchange, prosecutors agreed to drop the other charges – attempted murder, two counts of battery and one count of intimidation. His sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 24.
Officers launched a manhunt in southern Lake County before capturing Yanes in a cornfield near Crown Point. Police said it was a random attack.
Before Friday’s hearing, the girl’s mother said her daughter still doesn’t have feeling in one of her fingers.
“It all happened so fast,” the woman said.
They would ask for a maximum sentence. When asked, the family said they would be OK if Yanes was deported before his sentence.
“Hopefully, he stays out,” the mother said.
Police responded around 3:45 p.m. on Aug. 31, 2024, to the 17000 block of Morse Street near Lowell.
The girl said she was in the bleachers at the Lowell VFW softball field watching the game behind home plate when a man — later identified as Yanes — “hovered,” then tried to stab her in the chest with a big knife.
She blocked him and was later taken to the hospital for cuts on her fingers. The man ran toward her mom, who dodged him. He sprinted away from the field.
The victim’s mom said she heard the girl scream, ran to her, and the man turned around and tried to stab her. A witness said the man came out of the woods and walked toward the field. He thought the girl’s sun umbrella she held blocked most of the knife’s blows and saved her life.
Yanes was arrested around 4:30 p.m. Sept. 1, 2024, in a cornfield near Ind. 231 and Iowa Street. Police said Yanes was trying to cut his hair in order to change his appearance just before the arrest.
In a previous news release, Lake County Sheriff Oscar Martinez Jr. said the man was deported to Honduras in 2018 but re-entered the United States illegally at some point. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been notified that he is in custody.
Yanes told police he entered the U.S. in 2022 through Texas. He went to Colorado before coming to Chicago. Yanes said the stabbing was not intentional. He claimed he got the knife in the woods.
“Someone was following him and telling him to do it,” the affidavit states.
He fled when people started chasing him and threw the knife near a house near the edge of the woods. Police said they recovered a butcher-style knife believed to have been used by Yanes.
Court records allude to arrests in 2023 in Georgia for battery and criminal trespassing in New York.
Deputy Prosecutor Maureen Koonce and defense lawyer Eric Morris are assigned.
Post-Tribune archives contributed.
mcolias@post-trib.com