A man accused of putting a knife to the throat of one canoeist and slashing the arm of another near an Arkansas campground earlier this month was booked into a Florida jail Tuesday, according to online records.
Michael Leon Warrington, 49, of Chipley, Fla., was booked into Collier County jail on a warrant out of another Florida county for failure to pay child support, according to the jail’s online intake record.
He was also arrested on a second-degree battery warrant out Arkansas, stemming from a July 3 altercation along the Mulberry River north of Ozark in Franklin County.
A man and a woman were floating in a canoe down the river near the Redding Recreation Area & Campground when they pulled off at Huggins Loop to visit with a man later identified as Warrington, Sgt. Jeff Wood wrote in an arrest affidavit.
The pair chatted with Warrington and drank beer for about an hour, the document says. Warrington told them he suffered from PTSD after serving in the U.S. Navy.
The man shook Warrington’s hand and thanked him for his service before he started to walk away, Wood wrote. As he turned, Warrington struck him in the head with a “large knife or machete,” the victim told investigators.
Warrington then grabbed the woman, put a knife to her throat and said he “had all he wanted,” the affidavit says. He started to drag her toward his truck, then shoved her aside and slashed the man’s arm, the victim said.
The man got Warrington to the ground and the knife away from him before they both fled and met police at the campground, the document says.
The man said he was then airlifted to Washington Regional Medical Center, Wood wrote.
The Franklin County sheriff’s office called the suspect “armed and dangerous” in its Facebook post after the assault was reported. A warrant for Warrington’s arrest was issued Tuesday, according to online court records.
Warrington is being held at the Florida jail in lieu of a $6,146.78 bond. A message left at the Franklin County sheriff’s office asking if he would be extradited to Arkansas was not immediately returned.
