A West Roxbury man is being held without bail after authorities say he was kicked out of a corner store Wednesday night and then returned, stabbing two men inside before he was knocked unconscious during the struggle.
Kristopher Soderberg, 38, was arraigned in his hospital bed at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center yesterday on charges of armed assault with intent to rob and assault with a dangerous weapon and held on $10,000 bail. Soderberg, who was given a suspended sentence and two years’ probation just last week on unrelated drunken driving and assault and battery convictions, was also ordered held without bail pending a hearing on violation of his sentence, according to Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley.
Soderberg went into the Familia Grocery on Grove Street Wednesday night with a white pit bull and, after hanging around without buying anything and appearing drunk, he was told to leave, authorities said. On his way out, Soderberg warned “he would return,” prosecutors said, and he lived up to his promise, coming back to the store 30 minutes later without the dog but with a folding knife.
He then went behind the counter with the knife and ran at the man standing there, saying, “Now I’m gonna run with the money,” prosecutors said.
The man behind the counter also had a knife and during the ensuing fight, he and another man in the store were stabbed, one in the left bicep and the other in the chest, prosecutors said.
When Boston cops arrived at the store at 9:30 p.m., Conley said Soderberg was “lying unconscious on the floor.”
One of the stabbing victims was the store’s owner, according to Ada Crespo, 23, who said she is his niece.
Crespo, who was working behind the counter at Familia Grocery yesterday, said she briefly spoke to her uncle, a father of three, who told her he’d be OK.
“It’s kind of scary that this would happen over a dog,” she said. “I don’t know how to feel. I’m feeling all types of ways right now.”
