A South Florida mother is grateful she’s alive after she says a man stabbed her several times while she was watching her son play soccer.
Karen Giraldo thought she wasn’t going to survive.
“You never think this can happen to you,” Giraldo said. “I think this is my last moment and that’s it.”
Giraldo was at her son’s soccer game Aug. 23 at the Little Haiti soccer park in Miami when she said a man walked up to her and didn’t say anything. He then pulled out a large kitchen knife and started stabbing her, she said. Another parent’s camera was recording nearby.
“I remember thinking to myself, this is my last time, it’s a difficult situation,” Giraldo said.
The man, whom Giraldo doesn’t know and has never seen before, stabbed her three times in her back and hip. She said she threw herself to the ground to protect herself.
Parents and children ran for their lives. Giraldo had one thing on her mind.
“I remember thinking my son, my son, because I’m alone with my son at the moment and it’s horrible,” Giraldo said.
A man is still in jail more than a month after police say he stabbed a woman several times while she was watching her son play soccer. NBC6’s Niko Clemmons reports
Police said the man who stabbed Giraldo is Jayson Suprinvil. According to an arrest report, Suprinvil walked away, but a couple of other people who were at the park followed him to a nearby neighborhood where police caught up with him.
“This was scary, Karen was just being a mom,” said Alexis Gonzalez Athos with the Law Offices of Gonzalez and Associates, who is representing Giraldo. “Could it have been prevented? That’s what we’re trying to figure out now.”
Athos said her office is searching for answers to prevent something like this from happening again.
“We are investigating all possibilities and gathering all of the information on what security measures are put in place, what the people responsible knew or should have known,” Athos said.
Giraldo said she’s had to get psychological support, and she’s scared to take her son to his soccer games, but she’s trying day by day to get back to her normal. She also wants answers.
“I feel like the city needs to put security for the kids because I feel this shouldn’t have happened,” Giraldo said. “It’s not normal to attack somebody, and you never see this person.”
Giraldo is grateful she survived. Despite all the questions she still has, she says one thing matters most.
“I say thank you God first; this is a second chance for me,” Giraldo said.
NBC6 reached out to the city of Miami Tuesday night to see if they can address the mother and her attorney’s questions and concerns.
The judge said Suprinvil is also a fugitive in Palm Beach. He remains in jail without a bond.
A GoFundMe was established to help Giraldo with her recovery.