A man who stabbed a pregnant woman multiple times at a drive-thru ATM in Mira Mesa was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in state prison.
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Cole Klemke, 29, pleaded guilty to attempted murder for the June 15, 2024, attack on a woman who was four months pregnant. The victim was attacked around 10 a.m. that day after she pulled up to an ATM near the Target store on Mira Mesa Boulevard.
She exited the vehicle to reach the machine, at which point Klemke approached from behind and stabbed her in the face and neck. The attack sent her to the ground, where Klemke punched her and tried to stab her additional times, according to testimony from a preliminary hearing held earlier this year.
The woman was able to fight off her attacker by kicking him, causing him to flee, according to prosecutors. She was hospitalized but was released later that day.
At Klemke’s sentencing hearing, the victim delivered a statement remotely in which she said the physical and emotional toll of the stabbing weighs on her to this day.
Immediately after the attack, she said she sat in her car and tried to stop the bleeding, but “there were too many wounds to cover with two hands.”
More than two years later, she still carries scars from the attack and nerve damage, she said. She also said she remains fearful of strangers and couldn’t go out in public alone for nearly a year due to her safety concerns.
“I’m grateful to be alive and have worked very hard to rebuild my life, but this crime left permanent physical scars, lasting emotional trauma, and burdens that my family and I continue to carry every day,” she said.
San Diego police Detective Kate Brooker testified at the preliminary hearing that police circulated photographs captured from surveillance cameras of the attacker to the public, resulting in a tipster contacting police and identifying Klemke as the man in the pictures.
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Klemke was arrested a day after the stabbing.
