Women says she was stabbed, man shoots self

By JENNIFER RIGG
newsroom@news-tribune.net

April 18, 2006 03:02 pm

— Police are still investigating an alleged stabbing that occurred while a woman was walking late Friday night in the 500 block of East Sixth Street.
According to police reports, the victim, Vanessa Mills, 31, of New Albany, was walking home from Hugh E. Birs Café — a bar on the corner of East Fourth and Market streets in New Albany — when two women attacked her.
Mills said the women were yelling at her from across the street so she told them to “shut up” and continued walking. The women then walked across the street towards her, still yelling at her. One of the women knocked her onto the sidewalk and then both of them attacked her. One of the women bit her on the face and chest while the other took out what Mills said may have been a kitchen knife and cut her over her left eye.
Mills told police she continued walking home and didn’t realize the severity of her injuries until the next morning. She said her boyfriend took her to Floyd Memorial Hospital’s emergency room where she was treated and released.
Mills told police that both of the women were white and in their mid-30s. One she described as being 5 feet 10 inches tall and 170 pounds, and the other she described as being five feet tall and 95 pounds.
Police were not able to locate any evidence at the scene and found no witnesses to the incident.
Police were also called to the scene of an accidental shooting early Sunday morning at White Castle, located at the corner of Vincennes and Spring streets in New Albany.
According to a police report, an officer responded and discovered Michael D. Lanham, 26, outside his car in the parking lot with “a large amount of blood” on the side of his leg. An ambulance crew was already at the restaurant.
Lanham told police he was sitting in the drive-thru and ejected a round from the chamber of his .40 caliber Smith and Wesson semi-automatic handgun. He then pulled the magazine out of the weapon, replaced the round, pulled the trigger and accidentally shot himself in the leg. He told police he was talking to his girlfriend, who was also in the car, and “wasn’t paying attention.”
The bullet entered his left leg through the calf and exited above his ankle.
White Castle employees said he was placing his order into the drive-thru speaker when they heard the gun go off and then a woman scream.
Lanham was taken by ambulance to University of Louisville Hospital where he was treated and released. The police report didn’t indicate whether or not Lanham was a New Albany resident.
Police confiscated his weapon, but Lanham was able to pick up the gun after he was released from the hospital.
Lanham had an Indiana handgun permit and according to an NAPD spokesman, committed no crime.
The woman with Lanham at the time of the incident told police the shooting was “entirely accidental” and that he is “always very safe with the weapon.”