A man has been sentenced to 13 1/2 to 30 years in state prison for stabbing his uncle eight times in Cumru Township in 2025.
James Rice, 41, was sentenced Friday by Berks County Judge Eleni Dimitriou Geishauser.
Rice was convicted in September of attempted homicide, aggravated assault, possessing an instrument of crime and defiant trespassing.
District Attorney John T. Adams previously said Rice confronted his 61-year-old uncle for not telling him that his grandmother had died about a year earlier.
Adams said Rice went to the uncle’s house, confronted his uncle and stabbed him.
According to authorities:
Cumru police were dispatched Oct. 20, 2025, at 4:40 p.m. to the 1700 block of Acorn Drive for a report of an assault involving the stabbing of a man.
Officers found the victim alert and conscious, suffering from multiple stab wounds.
He told police that he had been stabbed by Rice, his nephew, who had no permanent address at the time. The victim was transported to Reading Hospital for treatment.
Rice had fled in his vehicle, and police asked the public for help in locating him.
Detectives obtained information for Rice’s phone, which provided his location in Maryland.
That information was passed along to Maryland State Police, who went to a rest stop in Hagerstown and took Rice into custody without incident shortly after midnight on Oct. 21.