Four people taken to the hospital after stabbing at a Ponte Vedra Beach restaurant

Witnesses say a teenager stabbed a mother and daughter, as well as a man who tried to intervene, at Mr. Chubby's Wings in Ponte Vedra Beach about 4:30 p.m. Saturday.

The three victims and the 18-year-old suspect all were hospitalized following the "targeted attack" at the sports bar and restaurant at 150 Valley Circle. The suspect "was known to the primary victim," the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office posted Sunday on Facebook.

"Two other individuals were injured when they intervened to render aid to the primary victim. All parties involved were transported to local area hospitals with serious injuries sustained from sharp force trauma," the Sheriff's Office also posted.

In addition, the Sheriff's Office posted that the suspect sustained self-inflicted injuries. Should he survive, "he will be charged with multiple felonies including attempted murder," the Sheriff's Office post concluded. Their specific relations were not released nor which person was the intended target, but it appears to be an attempted murder-suicide.

Kennedy Armstrong, the patron at the restaurant who jumped in to try to stop the suspect, was the first victim to be released from the hospital with a wound to a hand. He told Times-Union news partner First Coast News he came by Mr. Chubby's Wings after work and heard people yelling in the parking lot. That's when he saw a man stabbing two women, so he went running toward them. He said what happened after that is a blur, but his sole purpose was to get the man off of them.

He didn't know until after it was all broken up that he'd been hurt when he saw his pants covered in blood. His right hand was cut severely, damaging an artery and several ligaments.

When asked what it's like to see people calling him a hero, he said he just did what any person should in the moment.

"I just call it doing what you're supposed to do at the time," said Armstrong, whose friend Jimmy Stepp also helped. "You see two girls in trouble getting attacked by a guy, I would hope most people would do the same. Kudos to the mom, I think she's the real reason that girl is still alive."

Saturday the Sheriff's Office described the stabbings as "an isolated incident" with no outstanding suspects.

Tristyn Bailey case: A final no-contest plea for macabre Mother's Day for Fucci and Bailey families

Jacksonville stabbing: Jacksonville man pleads guilty in wife's stabbing death as trial was set to begin; she was divorcing him

Suspect tried to stab a K-9: Domestic abuse escalates into SWAT standoff, fatal Jacksonville police shooting

Another hero: The mother

“She’s like my soulmate as a sister, per se, as a friend," Casey Estep, who is friends with the victims, told First Coast News.

It’d been a while since Estep and her daughter Cloey Criggall had seen their softball friends on the First Coast. So they figured they’d take a two-hour drive over for a beach day and to grab a quick bite afterward. They’d had a fun day until Estep noticed somebody who caught her attention.

“I saw a boy get up that had the same school logo on, I was like, ‘Oh, he must go to the same school,'" Estep said. "They were like, ‘Oh, we’ve got to go.’”

They asked for the check and tried to quietly leave, but before Estep could finish cashing out, she said the boy took off running toward the other three in the parking lot.

“She did what any mother would and put herself in harm’s way," Estep said.

She said two men tried to break it up and got the knife away.

Estep and Criggall weren’t hurt, but they’re left hoping their best friends will be OK.

“We tried doing the best thing, which was leaving, and it didn’t end the way we wanted it to," Criggall said.

Who are the central figures?

The Sheriff's Office refused to provide the incident report to the Times-Union citing an ongoing investigation, which still violates Florida's open records laws, but has identified Spencer Ross Pearson as the 18-year-old suspect.

Times-Union archives include a photo of him playing defensive end for the Ponte Vedra High School football team, which his Facebook also includes photos of him in a Sharks uniform.

A GoFundMe identified the daughter as Madison Schemitz, a rising senior at Ponte Vedra High and a softball player, which her Facebook photo also shows. Both of their Facebooks show the two of them together as a couple as late as Christmas Eve 2022.

"She is a sister to five siblings and she will have a long road to recovery as she is in critical condition," the GoFundMe shows for Schemitz.

Tatiana Cruceta, Schemitz's oldest sibling who lives in New York, told First Coast News that although her sister couldn't feel her legs, the family is confident she will recover.

“Madison’s the sweetest person you’ll ever meet, she’s always smiling, always," Cruceta said. "So as soon as I answered the phone — we all call her ‘Sass,’ that’s her nickname — so I said ‘How you doin, Sass, how you feelin?’ And she goes ‘Oh just dandy.’ So she was cracking jokes and trying to be strong.”

She said her sister and Pearson had been broken up for a couple of months.

“I don’t know all the details, but I do know that there were some issues in the past after they had broken up, where he was threatening her safety," Cruceta said. "My mother was looking to get a restraining order against him so this was definitely premeditated. This was definitely something that he had planned.”

She says the pair had been broken up for a couple of months.

Jaclyn “Jacki” Roge is the mother and also is recovering, according to the GoFundMe update that states, "I am about to go into surgery, my muscles were severed from the bone on my hand. Madison has two chest tubes and a spinal cord injury but she's a fighter, just please continue praying for her.”

Read the First Coast News article here.

Times-Union staff writers Teresa Stepzinski and Scott Butler contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Four hospitalized after stabbing at Mr. Chubby's Wings in Ponte Vedra