City of Petersburg

2100 County Drive, Petersburg, VA

12:49 AM

Stabbing

Domestic

Petersburg man charged in slaying / Suspect in boyfriend’s death was convicted of manslaughter in ’04
By Mark Bowes
Times-Dispatch Staff Writer

Wednesday,November 26, 2008
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A Petersburg man charged yesterday with stabbing to death his live-in boyfriend served three years in prison for fatally stabbing his first cousin in 2003.
Timothy M. Blowe, 41, was arrested early yesterday and charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Charles Avent, 39, who was stabbed just before midnight in a trailer the men shared in the 2100 block of County Drive, Petersburg police said.

Avent died of his wounds at 12:49 a.m. yesterday at Southside Regional Medical Center.

Police said the killing was the result of a domestic dispute but declined to provide details.

The suspect and another person called 911 after the stabbing, said Petersburg police spokeswoman Esther Hyatt.

Five years ago, Blowe used a butcher knife to fatally stab his cousin after the two got into an argument inside Blowe’s trailer in Prince George County, said Prince George Commonwealth’s Attorney Jay “C” Paul, who tried the case before a jury.

Blowe was originally charged with second-degree murder in that case, but the presiding judge “would only let the jury consider a manslaughter charge,” Paul said. The jury found Blowe guilty of voluntary manslaughter and recommended a three-year prison term on June 4, 2004, according to court records.

Paul said that on Dec. 16, 2003, Blowe and his cousin John Curtis Blow, 43, got into an argument about a relative who died. The altercation continued inside Blowe’s trailer, and Blowe testified that his cousin hit him.

At that point, Blowe - who was wearing a cast on his arm with a sling - grabbed a butcher knife from a drying rack in the kitchen and stabbed his cousin in the shoulder blade. The knife penetrated one of Blow’s lungs and his heart, Paul said. Police found Blow lying unconscious in a puddle of blood in front of his mobile home, which he managed to reach before collapsing.

At the time, both cousins lived in Hill’s Mobile Home Park at 16001 Prince George Drive.

Paul said there were no witnesses to the slaying. “It was one person’s word against the other,” he said.

In the Petersburg slaying, Blowe is being held without bond in the Petersburg Jail pending a hearing Jan. 20 in Petersburg General District Court.