Stabbing Survivor Wants to Help High Schoolers

Wendy Damiani and her daughter lived a nightmare in early 2014.

Both were stabbed numerous times on a cold Friday night in early February inside Damiani’s Pennsbury Woods apartment in Falls Township. The person who stabbed them: her daughter’s boyfriend, Roy “Deon” Summers, 19, of Morrisville.

Summers and Damiani’s daughter had just had a child days before. Damiani said she noticed he seemed to be having trouble adjusting to fatherhood.

“Until two days before the stabbing, he never worked and didn’t have a good family life. He just wasn’t ready for a baby. He wasn’t responsible enough,” she said.

Now, the 45-year-old mother wants to work with local high school students to tell them her story and help them become responsible adults. Damiani said she feels her story could add a different element to the regular lessons schools teach.

“I think that because my story is true it will help,” she said. “I just don’t want anyone to go through what I went thought.”

Damiani said she is planning to meet with organizations like the Network of Victims Assistance and local schools districts to begin work on a program that she hopes would open a discussion with high school students about responsibility, teen pregnancy and domestic violence.

“Teens need to be more responsible. Sex isn’t just a game, it’s for real. If you’re going to have a baby, it’s not a toy.”

“Currently, programs for kids like that don’t exist,” Damiani said, citing her daughter’s high school experience.

Damiani said with all of the celebrity domestic violence cases in the news, events in her life and her coming to grips with being molested as a child, now seems like a good time to work on a program to help others.

“You really need to be strong to be a mom or a dad. I just don’t think there are programs out there like that for kids,” she said.

Summers and Damiani’s daughter had known each other for a short time and met through friends when the pregnancy happened. As her daughter’s pregnancy progressed, Damiani said she began to realize Summers didn’t appear ready to handle fatherhood. She also said the couple began to fight more.

“He didn’t hit her when they fought and she didn’t hit him. He would just walk out the door,” she said.

That clearly all changed when he stabbed the two.

“Deon walked out after stabbing my daughter, turned around, pushed me on the couch and started stabbing me. A cell phone call from a friend saved me,” Damiani said.

Summers was caught off-guard by the call and Damiani tried to talk him down.

“I stood there holding his hands and told him, ‘we can get help.’”

Summers didn’t listen. Instead, he swallowed a bunch of painkillers and began to slice himself. Falls officers arrived and around him bleeding outside the apartment complex.

Police said the argument that led to the stabbing started after Summers and Damiani’s daughter began having a conversation that angered him. At that point, he began mumbling to himself, “Why do you have to make me so angry?”  according to court paperwork.

Summers recently pleaded guilty in the case and will be sentenced in the coming weeks.

Today, Damiani said the baby is healthy and as happy as can be.

The guilty plea, her work on the program and assistance  from a counselor is helping Damiani recover.

Damiani said she hopes her story helps change lives for the better.

“I just don’t want this to happen to any other family.”