Arielle Prieto, now 18, recalls on the witness stand Tuesday the night back in 2015 when her ex-boyfriend Jacob Looney suddenly appeared outside her Fort Pierce bedroom.
“Telling him to get out, I’m asking him why he’s here. Telling him to get out," said Prieto.
Prieto had broken up with Looney, now 20 but then 17, a few months prior.
“During the summer I wanted to completely cut contact with him but he wasn’t okay with that so he kept finding ways to keep in contact with me," said Prieto.
Just hours before this confrontation, Prieto’s mother Janice had gotten a restraining order against Looney for stalking her daughter.
On that August night three summers ago, the Prieto’s claimed Looney would not leave, and the three became engaged in a violent confrontation with Looney first shoving Janice Prieto.
"When I stood up, he reached around from behind and stabbed me in my throat," said Janice Prieto.
Arielle, who came to her mom’s defense, was stabbed five times. The trauma surgeon said one wound could have been fatal.
“The stabbing that was in the abdominal area went all the way down to the heart," said Dr. Dimiter Hristov.
Under cross examination, the defense explained the restraining order was not for violence, and also tried to plant doubt as to whether Looney was actually armed when he and Janice Prieto were face to face.
Jacob Looney faces 5 felony counts including 2 counts of attempted first degree murder.
