SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Beth Phillips, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., woman was charged in federal court today with attempting to murder her husband following an attack in which she stabbed her husband and infant daughter with a foot-long chef’s knife.

Chilquitta Wane Favors, 25, of Fort Leonard Wood, was charged in a federal criminal complaint that was filed in the U.S. District Court in Springfield, Mo. The complaint alleges that on Saturday, Sept. 4, 2010, Favors assaulted her husband with the intent to commit murder by stabbing him.

According to an affidavit filed in support of today’s criminal complaint, Favors stabbed her husband, Pvt. Charles Favors, in the back of his head, causing a six-inch laceration, as well as in his back and his arm. Favors also stabbed her 10-month-old daughter in the lower right leg, which cut all tendons, nerves and muscle.

Favors had assaulted her husband the day before the attack, the affidavit says, and was ordered to have no contact with him. However, Favors told investigators that she concealed a foot-long chef’s knife in her jacket and went to meet her husband, the affidavit says. He was holding her daughter when Favors met him in the front yard. When he refused to take her back, or to let her have her children, she allegedly produced the knife and stabbed him repeatedly.

Phillips cautioned that the charge contained in this complaint is simply an accusation, and not evidence of guilt. Evidence supporting the charge must be presented to a federal trial jury, whose duty is to determine guilt or innocence.

This case is being prosecuted by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Lawrence and Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Mohlhenrich. It was investigated by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command at Fort Leonard Wood.

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