Man dead in confrontation near Petaluma

A man was killed and a woman sent to the hospital with stab wounds Friday afternoon after a violent confrontation outside a house west of Petaluma.

Sonoma County Sheriff’s Lt. Darin Dougherty said a man was dead outside a home on Marshall Avenue, near Shady Lane, when deputies arrived. A woman who had been stabbed several times in the upper torso was taken to a nearby hospital.

The woman is “expected to survive the multiple defensive wounds suffered in the attack,” Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Sgt. Cecile Focha said.

Officials were unable to confirm the cause of the man’s death.

A witness who declined to give his name said he was riding his bicycle south on Marshall Avenue at about 3:30 p.m., on his way to the Tomales area, when he saw a man and a woman struggling on the ground, in front of a house. The woman was screaming for her life, he said.

“There was a guy on top of a girl. At first, they were kind of wrestling, but these weren’t screams of them having fun,” the bicyclist said.

“This was gnarly,” he added. “I’m sitting here in my spandex. There’s not much I can do.”

The witness, who tried to wave down passing cars, called 911 to report the incident to sheriff’s deputies and was advised to leave the area. He was later called by a dispatcher and asked to return.

Dougherty confirmed the man and woman had been involved in a fight. “We’re not quite sure what the argument was over,” he said.

The bicyclist said a neighbor told him there was blood all over the house’s driveway. A section of Marshall Avenue remained closed for several hours as detectives combed through the scene.

A tarp-covered body could be seen at the edge of the driveway near the street. Deputies did not release the man’s name. They declined to comment on the relationship he had with the woman, whose name also was withheld.

Sandi and Bart Johnson live next door across Sandy Lane. They said they were in the yard when the stabbing occurred. But they said they didn’t hear the screams.

“We were in the backyard, a hundred feet catty-corner from them,” Sandi Johnson said.

She said two young women live in the home. One of the roommates is a nurse in Truckee and has lived at the home since summer 2013, she said. She added that each of the women has a child.

However, no children were home at the time of the stabbing, Dougherty said.

Focha asked anyone with information related to the stabbing to call the office’s tip line at ?565-2185.