Palmdale Man Is Held in Stabbing

The ex-boyfriend of a Palmdale woman was arrested on suspicion of assault Tuesday for allegedly stabbing her current boyfriend 50 times with a box cutter, sheriff’s officials said.

Odean Taylor, 31, of Palmdale was booked on assault charges in the attack, which occurred in the 4100 block of East Avenue R, said Deputy David Miklos of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in Palmdale.

A neighbor called the Sheriff’s Department just before 6 a.m. to report a fight, but when deputies arrived a few minutes later, no one was home, Miklos said.

Then the station received a call from Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster, informing authorities that Nikolas Nerves, 50, of Los Angeles was being treated for 50 stab wounds inflicted by a box cutter.

Nerves, who was taken to the hospital by his girlfriend, had 35 wounds on his back and the rest on his face, upper torso and arms, Miklos said.

A few minutes later, sheriff’s deputies received a call from Taylor, who said Nerves had stabbed him in the arm.

By midafternoon, authorities pieced together how the three calls may have been connected. They believe that Taylor went that morning to the house of his ex-girlfriend, whom deputies did not identify, and instigated a fight with Nerves.

“The old boyfriend comes over to visit the girl,” Miklos said. “I think he started getting hostile toward her. The new boyfriend intervenes. The next thing you know, out comes the box cutter.”

Deputies arrested Taylor at his home. He was treated for minor injuries at the hospital and then booked into custody, Miklos said.

Nerves was treated at the hospital and released.