Judge throws book at McDonald's employee who followed random customer into bathroom, stabbed him in face and neck

Richard W. Thornton (Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office) and the McDonald’s where he stabbed a random customer (WSAZ screenshot)

A 32-year-old former McDonald’s employee in West Virginia will likely spend the rest of his days behind bars after he followed a 56-year-old customer into the restaurant bathroom, stabbed him multiple times in the face and neck, then stole his wallet and left him there bleeding.

Circuit Court Judge Kenneth D. Ballard on Monday ordered Richard W. Thornton to serve a sentence of 100 years in a state correctional facility for first-degree robbery over the unprovoked attack, records reviewed by Law&Crime show. Ballard credited Thornton with 492 days of time already served.

Prior to handing down the formal sentence, Ballard excoriated Thornton over the vicious incident.

“You attacked a stranger in the bathroom of the McDonald’s completely unprovoked,” Ballard said, according to a report from West Virginia MetroNews. “After stabbing him multiple times in the face and neck, you took his wallet. He had to be rushed to the hospital to be treated for these life-threatening stab wounds.”

The judge also reportedly also said that Thornton’s “history of extreme violence,” demanded that he serve such a substantial prison sentence.

“Over the years you’ve threatened and chased family members with hatchets and with knives, also EMS workers,” Ballard said. “Your fixation with knives and your history of extreme violence, I find you a serious danger to this community and a high probability that you will reoffend if I release. I have a duty to protect this community.”

According to the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office, deputies at about 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023, responded to the McDonald’s restaurant at 105 Crossings Mall in Elkview, West Virginia, regarding a customer being stabbed and robbed in the bathroom. Deputies were told that the suspect — later identified as Thornton — was an employee who was seen fleeing the area on foot.

The victim was transported to the Charleston Area Medical Center (CAMC) General Hospital for treatment of “serious facial injuries and stab wounds to the neck,” the release states.

An investigating deputy was able to locate Thornton at a nearby Speedway and take him into custody. At the time of his arrest, Thornton was still in possession of the victim’s wallet and a “bloody fixed blade knife,” the sheriff’s office said.

Thornton was on probation at the time of the stabbing due to a 2019 incident in which he pulled a knife and tried to stab a paramedic while he was being transported to a hospital in the back of an ambulance. Thornton had been picked up after being observed on the side of the road “behaving like someone under the influence of drugs.” He told authorities that he was on both methamphetamine and bath salts at the time.

The 2019 incident resulted in Thornton being convicted of attempted malicious wounding of emergency service personnel.

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