Commonsense & Wonder

Kidnapped grandmother fends off knife-wielding attacker with concealed firearm

6 hours

A woman uses her Glock .380 handgun to get away from a man, who kidnapped her using a butcher knife. (Getty Images) 

Sarah TaylorJOURNALIST

l

The following story is a prime example of what happens when you bring a knife to a gun fight.

Missouri grandmother Diane McIntire revealed that she was attacked and kidnapped at knifepoint last week. According to McIntire, it was by “the grace of God” — as well as a concealed carry permit and a handgun — that she survived.

What happened?

• McIntire said she was visiting her family when she ran to the mall to do some shopping.
• A man approached her truck as she pulled into the parking lot, demanding she grant him entry, WQAD said.
• The suspect, 61-year-old Floyd May, was armed with a butcher knife, and didn’t hesitate to use it the moment he saw McIntire resisting, the station said.
• “It was a large butcher knife, I did not even see it at first, that’s how quickly he was in my space,” McIntire told WQAD. “I kicked him in his chest, pushed him back, I felt the knife cut right below my elbow.”
• She was forced to drive several miles down a local road as the attacker discarded her cellphone out the window, WQAD reported.

How did it all turn around?

• With a concealed carry permit and a Glock .380 handgun in her truck’s console, McIntire hoped for the best but prepared for the worst, the station said.
• May told McIntire to pull into a gravel lot in a nearby town, the station reported. At that point, she knew that things could very easily swing toward the worst-case scenario.
• “I knew I would live or die right there. He did tell me in the drive, if the police come up behind us, that we were both going to die that day,” she said, WQAD reported.
• McIntire revealed that May got out of the truck and became distracted when he dropped the knife. “I opened the console and grabbed my pistol,” she told the station. “I went ahead and got out of the truck. I had the gun at his chest, and I told him ‘Do not come near me.'”
• She told the station that May was warned: come near her, and she would shoot.
• McIntire said that once May spotted the gun, he took off on foot. She drove herself to a hospital for medical attention and phoned authorities, the station reported.
• The station said McIntire would need 24 stitches to close the wound made by May’s knife.
• “I didn’t want to take a human life if I didn’t have to,” she said to WQAD. “If he took one more step toward me, my finger was already squeezing the trigger, and yes, I would have shot him. There’s no doubt in my mind.”
• McIntire said, according to the WQAD, that in addition to her weapon, “the grace of God” is what saved her, along with the “sense to have calm.”