Showgirls attacked in unprovoked Las Vegas stabbing recall horror: ‘I’m screaming, asking everyone for help’
Two showgirls who were attacked in an unprovoked stabbing on the Las Vegas Strip this week are speaking out about their traumatic experience.
“I’m screaming, asking everyone for help,” Anna Westby recalled the scary moment when she was stabbed, speaking with local television station KLAS-TV on Friday.
“He caught up to me, and he stabbed me in the back and then he ran off,” she added, speaking from a hospital bed.
Westby is one of four showgirls injured in the stabbing that stunned the nation and left two Vegas residents dead and injured six other victims.
The two fatal victims were identified as Maris Mareen DiGiovanni, 30, and Brent Allan Hallett, 47.
DiGiovanni, a fellow showgirl, was stabbed in the chest.
Police say that 32-year-old Yoni Barrios used a “large kitchen knife” to carry out the shocking attack, which started late Thursday morning.
The suspect asked Las Vegas showgirls for pictures while holding the knife, then turned on them and started stabbing them, authorities said.
Las Vegas Strip stabbing spree suspect Yoni Barrios makes his initial court appearance at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas, Friday, Oct. 7, 2022. (K.M. Cannon/)
Cheryl Lowthorp, the owner of the Best Showgirls in Vegas, has set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for funeral expenses for DiGiovanni, as well as “medical, professional help, and other financial recovery efforts” for the “three other of our girls [who were] wounded and hospitalized, but thankfully [had] their lives spared.”
“She was exceptional,” Lowthorp said of DiGiovanni. “She was exceptional, she was on fire and beautiful and smart and radiant,” she told KLAS-TV.
Police work at the scene where multiple people were stabbed in front of a Strip casino in Las Vegas, Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022. (Rachel Aston/)
Victoria Caytano, a showgirl who had started her job just days before the incident, said that she started running and yelling “he has a knife!”
Caytano was also injured in the attack. She was taken to a local hospital but has since been released.
However, while she might be recovering physically, she’s not doing so great emotionally. “I just couldn’t believe that this was happening to me,” she said.
Barrios, who has an address in Los Angeles, made his initial court appearance on Friday and was ordered held without bail.
An initial arraignment was scheduled for Tuesday.
With News Wire Services
