A Dowagiac woman will be spending nearly a decade behind bars for brutally stabbing a former lover while he was asleep.

Cass County Circuit Judge Michael Dodge sentenced Brenda Joyce Love, 47, to a minimum term of nine years in prison, with a maximum term of 30 years, during her appearance in the county courthouse Friday.

She was sentenced on one count of assault with intent to commit great bodily harm less than murder, a crime she pleaded guilty to on Feb. 27.

The incident took place during the early morning hours of July 18, when Love attacked her ex-boyfriend, Gary Grady, who was sleeping on a loveseat inside his apartment, located at the Hamilton Square complex on Lowe Street, where she was spending the night. Using a blade, she stabbed once in the back of his neck, waking him from his slumber. She continued to pierce him in the head and arms while he struggled to fend off the attacker.

“He didn’t know at first who was stabbing him, until he woke up and grabbed the knife,” said Assistant Prosecutor Tiffiny Vohwinkle. “He thought someone had broken in until he saw the defendant
coming at him.”

The scuffle woke up Grady’s mother and sister, who were asleep in another part of the apartment. At that point, Love offered to take the victim to the hospital for treatment, but was forced from the premises by the other women.

The Dowagiac man was taken to Borgess-Lee Memorial Hospital, and was airlifted to Borgess facilities in Kalamazoo due to the amount of blood loss he sustained in the assault.

“He [Grady] was told by the nurse suturing him up that he was lucky, because in regards to the wounds in his neck, a stab an inch to one side more would have struck his spinal cord, and he would have been paralyzed for the rest of his life,” Vohwinkle said. “An inch the other way would have struck his jugular vein, and he would have died within seconds.”

Grady and Love had gotten into a heated argument the evening prior, the prosecutor said. The two had been romantically involved for quite some time, but had broken up their relationship shortly before the attack took place.

The defendant agreed to plead guilty to the charge against her, accepting an agreement from the prosecution. While she maintains her claim that her attack was a response to a history of abuse from her former partner, she decided to take the plea offer instead of going to trial, where she could faced a minimum prison sentence of up to 14 years, said her attorney, Robert Drake.

“The only two people who will know 100 percent the truth of what happened that night are Grady and Love,” Drake said.

She was given 243 days credit for time already served.