Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - College Student Allegedly Stabs Classmate in Vicious Attack on 'Easier Target'

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

Mara Daffron, 19, is recovering after suffering stab wounds in a classroom at Arizona State University's West Valley Campus on September 19. Daffron's classmate, Kaci Sloan, 19, faces charges related to the stabbing as police say she claimed she wanted to attack someone and Daffron was the "easier target." Law&Crime's Angenette Levy talks outlines what happened during the attack and how Daffron is doing in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Download the FREE Upside App at https://upside.app.link/crimefix to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guests:Dr. Apryl Alexander  https://x.com/DrAprylAJosh Ritter https://x.com/JoshuaRitterESQCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. An Arizona State University student is home recovering after walking into a classroom and being stabbed by a fellow classmate. Thankfully, another student stepped in to help. Now the accused attacker is behind bars. This is the story of Mara Daffron. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. What I'm about to tell you is truly terrifying and disturbing. Imagine you're walking into a classroom on a Thursday morning. You're 19 years old and you're attacked with a knife. That is what happened to Mara Daffron on Thursday, September 19th at Arizona State University's West Campus in Glendale, Arizona.

Witnesses described Daffron, a bubbly student with no enemies, screaming. Police say the person who attacked Daffron was fellow classmate Casey Sloan. It's hard to imagine what could prompt someone to walk into a classroom with a knife and attack someone. And you might be wondering, was there a prior altercation, a beef? Not that that would in any way justify an attack. But no, police say Casey Sloan admitted to attacking Daffron because she simply wanted to hurt someone. Court documents describe the disturbing incident in a place where people should feel safe. Approximately 13 witnesses, which consisted of a professor and students, remained on scene for individual interviews and told police the defendant stabbed the victim

several times with a knife in the left shoulder and left side without provocation or any words spoken while in Classroom 101. The document says two people worked to disarm Sloan. They grabbed her and all three of them fell to the ground and one of them threw that knife to get it away. It all happened very quickly. Another witness, according to the court document, described the defendant was sitting in the classroom at a desk and suddenly got up and ran at the victim as the victim entered the classroom and stabbed her multiple times. EMTs treated Mara Daffron at the school, and she was taken to the hospital where she underwent surgery. Doctors didn't know if they'd have to remove her spleen

as it was filling with fluid. Mara told doctors that she was scared because she didn't know why Casey Sloan would stab her, leading police to believe that the two did not know each other, and they didn't. Police say they found letters in Sloan's backpack about what she was about to commit and her struggles with self-worth issues, but they said they didn't say what she was going to do. The court document says the defendant told detectives she was considering two persons to attack, but ultimately chose the victim because the other person was a veteran and believed the victim was an easier target. The veteran is believed to be Matthew McCormick, who actually intervened and helped save Mara Daffron. He told a local news station that he felt compelled to do something. Sloan was charged with aggravated

assault with a deadly weapon and disorderly conduct with a weapon. Her bond is set at $250,000 cash and additional charges could be added. Police said Sloan told them she had thought about hurting people in the past, but had been disgusted by those thoughts. The night before this attack, she apparently believed hurting someone would make her problems go away. I want to take a moment to tell you about Upside, a sponsor of Crime Fix. Upside is a free app that gets you cash back on things like food and gas upside is not a confusing rewards program it will give you real money back that goes straight into your bank account just download the upside app click on it and claim an offer and pay with

your debit or credit card as usual upside works at places like shell exxon 7-eleven taco bell kfc and even chipotle to find out how much you could earn, click the link in the description to download Upside or scan the QR code on your screen and use our promo code CRIMEFIX and get an extra 25 cents back on every gallon on your first tank of gas. That's promo code CRIMEFIX for extra cash back. Dr. April Alexander is the director of the Violence Prevention Center at UNC Charlotte. So Dr. Alexander, this is a really disturbing case. We have a student who's accused of not even really having much to do or knowing her fellow classmate and attacking her, just walking into class

and stabbing her with a knife. Yeah, a really bizarre case where I was wondering what happened. Sometimes when we hear these horrific cases, I try to think about what happened to them rather than what's wrong with them, because we don't just see these acts of violence happening out of nowhere. You're a college professor. You're a professor of forensic psychology. And so you're in college classrooms all of the time. And, you know, we're supposed to feel safe in classrooms, but the reality is you have to kind of almost be aware of your surroundings wherever you are these days. So what can we do on a college campus to prevent something like this? Because Mara Daffron, the victim in this case, she had no clue and no idea from what's in the court documents why Casey Sloan would come out

and stab her. Yeah, campus safety has been a big topic of conversation on college campuses over the last decade. We've been thinking about ways to provide resources to our students, especially on some of these bigger campuses. You have over 20,000 students on campuses, and we're seeing rising rates of mental health concerns on the campus. So some questions I had, particularly at this age range where some individuals might have their first mental health episode or psychotic break, is what resources are available to them? Was there any opportunity for early detection? Were there any signs that this student was in potential distress before this occurred? She had apparently the night before, you know, thought about this and thought about who would be the easier target according to the court documents. She had also, I guess, according to the court documents, skipped class earlier in the day to write letters about, you know,

why she was going to do what she was going to do or something to that effect. So this is clearly somebody who has a history of, you know, it said self-worth issues, according to the documents. She had thought about hurting people in the past, but felt disgusted by that. I mean, so she is troubled and she needed help and didn't get that help. So how do we identify this type of thing? I mean, I think the message needs to be put out there that if you're feeling something like this, you need to reach out and get the help instead of letting it kind of boil over. Absolutely. And also thinking about bystanders.

So that's exactly what I was talking about earlier. Colleges and universities throughout the country are setting up these early kind of action alert systems. So if a professor, a peer is noticing anything strange or unusual, being able to tap into campus resources like our counseling center, like campus safety, to see if we can get this person the help that they need. So again, I wonder if anybody was seeing some of this isolation, if there was a pattern of missing classes where a person would be able to report this. From a forensic psychology standpoint, what are you seeing? I mean, obviously, you have not evaluated Casey Sloan and you're just reading what I'm reading in the documents that she was having self-worth issues and felt like harming somebody because she thought that would make her problems go away. How does somebody make that connection mentally? Yeah, we don't know her

background or history by any means, or there could be a whole host of range of diagnoses that could be at play here. Again, it could be simple jealousy or it can be a delusional disorder, which would make you think that you would have to harm somebody in order for something positive to happen within your life. So these are some of the questions that I have about this particular situation of whether or not this was a person's kind of first episode of some type of psychiatric illness. So you think it's possible that maybe she had some history, whether it was treated or not, and it could just be undiagnosed? Absolutely. Again, we know that so many young people, when we see those first kind of mental health crises, our first psychotic break happened between the ages of 18 to 21. You're away from the house, you're away from resources and your support systems that you

might have had in the past. And you're in this new college environment where things are exacerbated, stressors are happening. And if there were earlier signs of mental health, that could be something that exacerbates this. Well, just thank goodness that the other students intervened. I mean, my gosh, think about how bad this could have been had maybe this happened and other students weren't around. Absolutely. And I think that's one of the other things that was unique about this case is we're starting to do more preparation about this. As we're talking about campus safety, do people know what to do in a time of crisis, whether it's something like this or potential school shooting, do we even know how to react?

And in this situation, the students did. Most certainly. And thank goodness. And Mara Dauphron is recovering at home, and we hope she continues to recover. Dr. April Alexander, thank you so much. Thank you. Now, following the attack, a spokesperson for Arizona State University released a statement. ASU and the entire ASU West Valley campus community are deeply saddened by what has happened.

ASU West Valley is a tight-knit community of students, faculty, and staff. We are deeply appreciative of all those who responded swiftly to intervene and provide assistance. Our thoughts continue to be with all impacted. Josh Ritter is the host of Courtroom Confidential on YouTube. He's also a former prosecutor and currently a defense attorney. So, Josh, this case, I couldn't believe it when I read about it. This poor girl, Maura Daffron, walks into her classroom and she's attacked by a fellow student.

Yeah, these are the types of cases that give me nightmares because it's a person who's just living their life. This isn't some sort of high risk environment she was in. She's going to school, doing something she did every day. She's at school where, by the way, she probably feels a little more safe than just being on the street. And she's just randomly attacked. There wasn't some sort of incident that provoked this. It's the stuff that gives you nightmares, like I said. And you would thank God, you know, she was able to survive this. And let's hope that she doesn't have scars that she can't heal from moving forward. But it really is one of those things that makes you wonder what could have been done to avoid this. And fortunately, Mara survived. She's home from the hospital being cared for by her mother and other family members. But she is going to have a lot of trauma, not only the physical trauma, but the emotional trauma.

I mean, this is the thing of nightmares. I mean, you should be able to walk in to a classroom on a college campus and feel safe. And she walked in there and this Casey Sloan, according to law enforcement says, well, there were two people in there I was going to attack there. You know, I had some options and she was the easier target. I mean, I just gassed when I read that because I couldn't believe that that is what somebody would actually say about this. Yeah. It's so chilling too, because she doesn't say that she had any animosity or problem with this victim that she attacked. It was simply, she knew that day she prepared herself.

She was going to school. She was going to attack someone. And it came down to a couple of choices. And this poor young girl looked like the easier mark. And that's who she went after. And that's the part that really makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. Because what could this have young girl done to avoid it? Absolutely nothing. She was just living her life. It also makes me curious as to how prosecutors will handle this because that to me shows someone who's premeditated in their actions.

And I don't know if she's going to be charged with something more serious than she already has been. But the mere fact that this young lady was able to survive to me does not make this any less of a serious crime. I see it as attempted murder. There is a class survive, to me, does not make this any less of a serious crime. I see it as attempted murder. There is a classmate, thank goodness, who's being hailed a hero here, who kind of stepped in and said he felt he had to do something. Matthew McCormick is his name. So, I mean, the thing that is so stunning to me about this is that you have witnesses, you have a good Samaritan who steps in to help. I'm trying to figure out where somebody gets to the place where they carry out

something like this. I mean, is there some clear mental illness here or I don't know. You know, so far the reporting is saying that they don't have a motive, that she was very forthcoming about the idea that she had planned this and came there to just hurt someone and it didn't matter who. So, you know, I'm no psychologist, but a lot of this does scream some sort of mental health crisis to me. But I imagine we will learn more about that. But otherwise, you have to wonder what on earth brings someone to do this. Because like you said, it didn't even appear as though she really wanted to get away with it either.

I mean, she's doing it in front of other people. She was stopped quickly, thank God. She's in the middle of an environment where she's obviously going to be arrested. And then she's very forthcoming about her thinking on this. So it's the planning of someone who's very deliberate in trying to cause harm, but also does not care about the consequences. Where do you see this case going? Do you see upgraded charges?

You said you see this as attempted murder. I don't see how anybody sees this as anything but when you have somebody attacking somebody in a classroom where they should feel safe with a knife. Yeah, I don't know how you get around charging this as anything less than attempted murder. To me, you stab someone in the chest more than once. You're not looking to defend yourself. You're not looking to cause superficial harm. You're looking to take that person's life. It was only for the intervention of this good Samaritan student and responders who were able to get there quickly that may have saved her life. But she shouldn't

benefit from that. As far as I'm concerned, criminal liability, criminal culpability demands this to be an attempted murder. Well, we will certainly see where they take this case. It's in the hands of the Maricopa County Prosecutor's Office now, and we'll see what they decide to do with it. Obviously, it'll have to go through the system, eventually probably do it with the grand jury, and it'll go from there. Josh Ritter, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Friends of Mara Daffron's family have set up a GoFundMe to help pay for medical expenses. To date, it has raised more than $23,000, and Mara Daffron is recovering at home. Thank goodness she is home with her family,

but she is still having some emotional trauma from what has happened, as you can imagine. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.