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Man gets 10 year for meth-fueled stabbing attack

A Houston man was sentenced to 10 years in prison after admitting he launched into a meth-fueled rage in which he stabbed a friend 21 times, Harris County prosecutors said Wednesday.

Richard Allen Jeffcoat, 21, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for the September 2017 attack.

He asked that a judge in the 180th State District Court determine his sentence.

Jeffcoat, a first-time offender, asked for probation.

Assistant Harris County District Attorney Andrew Figliuzzi asked for 14 years - one year for each minute the wounded man lied on the pavement waiting for paramedics to arrive.

The incident unfolded in a fast-food restaurant parking lot in Atascocita.

Jeffcoat and his friend, Allen Lowery, sat in a sedan in the nighttime darkness and ingested methamphetamine and cocaine.

They’d been up for 11 days, according to testimony during a two-day sentencing hearing that ended Tuesday.

Jeffcoat grew paranoid. A verbal argument ended with Jeffcoat stabbing Lowery with a butcher knife, leaving him with collapsed lungs and extensive blood loss.

Lowery survived the attack. He testified of a success story, in which he not only recovered from his injuries, but completed rehabilitation, and left behind his drug addiction. Lowery is now studying to be a pastor.

Figliuzzi said the lesson of the case is clear.

“Methamphetamine is dangerous and wildly unpredictable, even more so when mixed with other drugs,” he said. ”Users caught in a vicious cycle of addiction need to seek help before they end up dead or in prison.