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Ocala
Thursday, March 28, 2024

Bloodied woman with stab wound calls for help after EBT card battle

Taylor Ryan Whittington

An Ocala man was arrested early Sunday morning after a battle over an EBT card that included a death threat left a woman with a stab wound in her hand.

The woman told Marion County sheriff’s deputies that 21-year-old Taylor Ryan Whittington was arguing with her outside the residence after her mother told him to leave. She said she walked back inside the home and Whittington called her to tell her “she was going to give him her EBT card or he would kill her family,” a sheriff’s office report states, adding that Whittington also told the woman to come back outside.

The woman said she opened the door and asked Whittington why she should give him the EBT card and he stated, “This is why,” while pulling out a blue-and-black pocket knife about four inches in length, the report says.

The woman told deputies that Whittington then held the knife above his head and lunged at her. She said she put her right hand up to block the knife and she was stabbed in her right palm, the report says, adding that she had an inch-long laceration.

The woman said Whittington then fled on foot with the belongings he already had packed in a blue-and-gray duffel bag. And she added that the EBT card was in her name and Whittington had never used it.

The woman’s mother told deputies that her daughter and Whittington lived with her and she didn’t condone either of them drinking alcohol. She claimed that Whittington had been drinking when she was away and when she returned home, she told him he needed to leave, the report says.

The mother also told deputies that Whittington started beating on one of the vehicles parked outside her home while arguing with her daughter. She said her daughter came back into the house and then went back outside after getting the phone call from Whittington. Then she heard her daughter screaming and saw her hand bleeding, the report says.

Deputies located Whittington a short time later in a nearby wooded area. He told deputies that he “only had a verbal altercation” with the woman and “left the residence to cool down.” And he said he never threatened or stabbed the woman, the report says.

Whittington was taken into custody and transported to the Marion County Jail, where he was charged with two counts of aggravated battery using a deadly weapon and two counts of robbery with a weapon. He was being held on $30,000 bond on two of the counts and no bond on the other two and is scheduled to appear in Marion County Court on Nov. 13 at 9 a.m.