A Baker City woman is charged with second-degree assault for allegedly cutting another woman with a sharp weapon during a dispute at an apartment on Saturday evening, April 5.

Clerisa Lynn Kenworthy 29, was arrested about 7:24 p.m. at the Green Acres Apartments, 1560 Indiana Ave.

Second-degree assault is a Measure 11 crime in Oregon, with a mandatory minimum prison sentence, on conviction, of five years and 10 months.

Police took Kenworthy to the Baker County Jail, where she remains in custody. She is also charged with second-degree disorderly conduct.

The Baker County District Attorney’s office has filed a motion to asking the court, based on her arrest Saturday, to revoke the release agreement Kenworthy was granted after a Sept. 19, 2024, arrest on charges of interfering with police and resisting arrest.

Kenworthy’s next scheduled court appearance is a plea hearing on April 28 at 1:30 p.m. Her bail was set at $50,000. She could be released by posting 10% of that amount.

The incident started when another resident in the apartment complex called police and reported that a woman was screaming, said Detective Sgt. Wayne Chastain of the Baker City Police Department.

Officers Mark Powell and Andrew Martin, along with Sgt. Rand Weaver, went to the apartment, Chastain said.

According to a probable cause affidavit written by Martin, Baker Dispatch had multiple 911 calls about the incident.

Martin wrote that he talked to Vanessa Thomas, 43, whose “hair, face, and shirt were covered in blood on her right side, and she was bleeding from her head. She also had a large amount of blood on her left arm.”

Chastain said Thomas was treated for the wounds at the hospital.

Martin wrote in his affidavit that Kenworthy had been living in an apartment that Thomas’ ex-husband, Shawn Kite, rents, and that Kite had been trying to get Kenworthy to leave.

Martin wrote that Thomas told him that on Saturday evening she talked with Kenworthy in Kite’s apartment, regarding Kenworthy moving out, and that the conversation turned into an argument.

Thomas told Martin she grabbed some of Kenworthy’s possessions, which were packed, and that while taking the items out of the apartment, Kenworthy “attacked her, grabbing her and hitting her.”

Thomas said she and Kenworthy fought for a couple minutes. She said Kite, who was also there, then told her she was bleeding.

Martin wrote that while interviewing Thomas, he saw “four large cuts on her left arm and hand,” one of which, on the knuckle of her little finger, was “deep enough to see the tendon.”

Martin said he also saw two cuts on Thomas’ left forearm, above the wrist. “The upper one was between 1 and 1.5 inches long, deep enough the fatty layer was bulging out through the cut. The lower one was around 1 inch long. Both of these cuts were also bleeding profusely. All four of these cuts were very clean and clearly made with some kind of edged weapon or other sharp implement.”

Martin wrote that Thomas was bleeding from at least one and possible two head wounds, but he couldn’t find the wounds due to the “amount of blood matted in her hair.”

Chastain said police have not recovered a weapon.

Based on photographs of Thomas’ injuries, he said the weapon might be a box cutter or similar type of blade.

Martin wrote in his affidavit that he interviewed Kenworthy, who told him that Thomas had “attacked” her, grabbing her hair, shoving her and starting to punch her.

“I did not see any evidence of injury to her face or shoulders which would have indicated she was being punched, as she claimed,” Martin wrote.

Martin wrote that he told Kenworthy her story didn’t match the physical evidence, including the injuries to Thomas.

Martin wrote that Kenworthy denied having any “edged weapons.”