A Washington state woman claims it was the dating app Tinder that led her to attack her boyfriend with a samurai sword in the early morning hours of March 3rd, according to The Oregonian. Her boyfriend claims it was skills developed as a professional gamer and lover of Kung Fu movies that helped him survive the brutal attack.
Following her discovery of the app, as well as red hairs in their shower drain and suspicious scratches on her boyfriend’s back, Emily Javier, 30, repeatedly slashed Alex Lovell with a sword while he slept, leaving him with life-threatening injuries while nearly cutting off three of his fingers. Lovell, 29, better known in the professional gaming community as ‘Biggie,’ claims he never cheated on his girlfriend of two years, but that his increased devotion to gaming in recent months, particularly the game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, had left him physically exhausted and incapable of showing Javier the ‘affection’ she deserved.
Javier told police that she had purchased the sword at the mall not long after discovering Tinder on Lovell’s phone, taping it to her side of their bed along with two other knives. One week later, she would enact her plan, slashing Lovell across the neck and abdomen in their bed.
“I was trying to kill him,” she reportedly told police, having hid Lovell’s phone so that he wouldn’t be able to call for help.
Following a struggle, in which Lovell was able to get Javier into a bearhug while she tried to “rip off” his genitals, he was able to convince her to call the police and save him.
“I was able to wing chun my way to survival,” Lovell said, a reference to a type of close-range, Chinese martial arts made popular in Kung Fu movies.
The phone call, released this week, shows a distressed Javier admitting to stabbing Lovell “everywhere,” as she frantically tells a dispatcher that she thinks he’s dead.
According to police, the sight they would eventually arrive to investigate at around 2 a.m. that morning was even more violent than expected, with blood covering the walls of the shared Camas, Washington home as Lovell writhed in agony on the ground. Police at the scene were unable to discern just how many distinct wounds Javier had even inflicted as they rushing Lovell to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.
Lovell survived and remains in recovery, though the extent of the possible muscle and nerve damage he’s suffered remains unknown. A GoFundMe campaign has been started on Lovell’s behalf to help him pay for the cost of rehab and recovery, with over $8,000 pledged thus far.
Javier is currently being held in the Clark County jail on $350,000 bail for an attempted murder charge. Her trial is scheduled to begin on May 7.
