Stabbed husband saves wife by driving car into knife-wielding man, NC sheriff says

A man stabbed outside a Food Lion went on the offensive to protect his wife, using his vehicle to run down a knife-wielding man, according to investigators in North Carolina.

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The incident happened around 8:30 p.m. Sunday at the Food Lion on Valley Road in Mocksville, and ended with the suspect located in the store’s deli, the Davie County Sheriff’s Office said in an Aug. 31 news release.

“The victim had dropped his wife at that front door and pulled into a parking space to wait on his wife. The victims’ children were in the vehicle with him. The suspect approached the victim on foot and struck him in the chin/neck area with a knife,” the sheriff’s office said.

“The suspect then returned to his vehicle. The victim contacted his wife and told her he had been stabbed and pulled to the front of the store to pick her up. … As the victims’ wife exited the store, the suspect was approaching on foot.”

Court documents report the suspect was seen “charging toward” the woman, with a “large” fixed-blade knife.

That’s when the husband drove the family’s car “into the suspect, knocking him to the ground,” the sheriff’s office said. “The suspect got to his feet and ran into the store,” officials said.

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Deputies found the suspect behind the store’s deli counter, and the knife was also located, officials said.

Eric Burgess, 36, of Mocksville, was arrested and charged with: assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill/inflicting serious injury; going armed to the terror of the people; breaking and entering of a motor vehicle, and assault on a female, the sheriff’s office said.

The husband’s stab wounds are not life-threatening, officials said.

Details of a motive have not been released, but the suspect’s vehicle was parked next to the victim’s vehicle at the time of the incident, an arrest warrant reports.

Mocksville is about a 60-mile drive northeast from uptown Charlotte.

This story was originally published September 1, 2026 at 3:44 AM with the headline “Stabbed husband saves wife by driving car into knife-wielding man, NC sheriff says.”

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