John Jefferson
Left and inset: Dimas Gabriel Yanes (Lake County Sheriff). Right: Yanes being escorted by deputies during his arrest (Lake County Sheriff).
A suspected member of the MS-13 gang in Indiana is accused of randomly attacking a 13-year-old girl with a butcher-style knife as she was watching her brother play baseball at a park during the Labor Day weekend, police said.
Dimas Gabriel Yanes, 26, faces charges of attempted murder, battery and intimidation, online court records show.
In an interview with Fox News, coach Matthew Ramian recounted the terrifying attack in the bleachers at 3:45 p.m. on Saturday at the fields at 17401 Morse Street in Lowell, in northern Indiana, around 60 miles southeast of Chicago.
“Out of the corner of my eye, I see this dude just come out of behind my dugout, and all he did was just jump on this girl, and then he started to push her down under the bleachers,” he told the station. “Then he pulls out at least a 16- to 20-inch knife, it wasn’t even a regular-sized pocket knife, and just started swinging it and got her a few times, and blood went all over the bleachers and on the people sitting in front of them.”
Citing a probable cause affidavit, The Times of Northwest Indiana reported that the suspect allegedly hovered over her while holding a large knife. He allegedly tried to stab her in the chest, which she blocked with her hand, the document said.
Ramian said after the attack, the assailant ran down the sidelines, chased by up to 15 spectators. The suspect disappeared into nearby woods, prompting deputies to search overnight and the next day. Yanes was captured the following afternoon after he was seen running through a cornfield, officials said.
Authorities said they recovered a “butcher-style knife” and that the suspect cut his hair to try to change his appearance, adding to the ominous aura around the terrifying incident as his mug shot shows an incomplete job of close-cropped chunks mixed with longer hair.
Citing the affidavit, the Chicago Tribune reported the suspect told investigators he found the knife in the woods and the attack was not intentional. “Someone was following him and telling him to do it,” the affidavit said, according to the Tribune report.
The girl was treated at a hospital for wounds to her hand and released, officials said.
The suspect behind the attack was a documented member of MS-13 and had been classified as a risk to law enforcement and national security, Sheriff Oscar Martinez Jr. said on Facebook.
He was deported to Honduras in 2018 but re-entered the United States illegally and has a criminal record including battery, trespassing, intoxication, and attempted burglary across four states — New York, Illinois, Georgia, and Ohio, the sheriff said.
Yanes is being held at the Lake County Jail with bail set at $15,000 cash or $150,00 surety, online court records show.
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