BY ROGER SMITH
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN

INEZ — Todd Whitt, 35, of Buffalo Horn in Martin County, was handed two prison sentences Thursday for brutally stabbing his girlfriend and a neighbor in 2021.

Martin Circuit Judge Kevin Holbrook sentenced Whitt to 10 and 14 years, with the sentences to be served concurrently.

In August, Whitt entered a guilty plea to two counts of first-degree assault relating to the June 5, 2021, stabbing. On that day, he assaulted Niki Boyles, then 34 years old, stabbing her multiple times in the chest and arm at their Buffalo Horn residence. After Boyles managed to escape Whitt’s grasp and flee the house, Whitt began looking for her, leading him to a neighbor’s doorstep. Upon answering the door, Shawn Blevins, 47 at the time, was stabbed multiple times by Whitt.

Boyles had taken refuge in a nearby home.

After assaulting Blevins, Whitt fled. Witnesses informed Martin County Sheriff John Kirk of seeing Whitt heading up a hill. While surveying the area, Sheriff Kirk spotted Whitt in a yard and arrested him at gunpoint.

The incident left Boyles with life-threatening injuries that required an airlift to a hospital. Blevins, also severely injured, was transported by ambulance.

In a related incident in January 2022, while being transported from the Big Sandy Regional Detention Center in Paintsville to the courtroom in Inez, Whitt attempted to escape by kicking out a window of the jail transport vehicle. Sheriff Kirk and Deputy Billy Patrick subdued Whitt, transferring him to a police cruiser while Whitt yelled expletives at them.