Man sentenced for stabbing QuikTrip guard who tried to stop him from stealing 12-pack
A 26-year-old man who stabbed a security guard trying to stop him from stealing a 12-pack of alcohol from a Wichita QuikTrip in 2021 has been sentenced to more than nine years in prison, Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office spokesman Dan Dillon said.
After he was arrested, Terry L. Fine Jr. of Wichita bragged about attempting to kill the guard to a fellow inmate and to a corporal at the Sedgwick County Jail, according to a probable cause affidavit released in the case.
Fine also spat at and threatened the lives of police and security officers at a Wichita hospital where he was taken for treatment after he tried to slash his own throat following the fight with the QuikTrip guard, the affidavit says.
Fine pleaded guilty on May 8 to one count each of aggravated battery, criminal threat, battery against a law enforcement officer and theft, Sedgwick County District Court records show. Judge David Kaufman handed down the 110-month prison sentence on Friday morning, Dillon said — denying a request from Fine’s lawyer to place him on probation.
In a written motion, the lawyer argued Fine deserved probation because he saved the court time and resources with his guilty plea and said he would be better served by community-based programs. Fine has a number of mental illnesses for which he had received repeated treatment for at least 12 years, the lawyer noted in the motion.
Fine was originally charged with attempted second-degree murder.
The QuikTrip guard told police he had his eye on Fine after seeing him shoplift alcohol from the convenience store, 750 S. Broadway, twice on Dec. 20, 2021, according to the affidavit. When Fine walked out a third time with a $15.99 case of Mike’s Hard Lemonade, the guard followed him out of the store.
When the guard ordered Fine to stop, Fine hurled the 12-pack at him and took off, the affidavit says. The guard ran after him and wrestled him to the ground.
When the guard tried to handcuff him, Fine “threw a punch” and cut the guard’s face with a kitchen-style knife that had a five-inch blade, the affidavit says.
The guard told police Fine “went for his head” swinging the knife. He said he feared Fine “was going to kill him and anyone else around” if he let go of his hand, according to the affidavit.
After Fine stabbed the guard in the right thigh, the guard “disengaged and broke contact.”
Fine then ran around the building, where he cut at his own throat before police arrested him.
Fine later told an officer “he made the decision to fight back to the death” after the guard tackled him and that he did not want “to go back to prison” after “growing up in the correctional system,” the affidavit says.
He also boasted about the stabbing and “acted surprised” when he wasn’t initially jailed on suspicion of attempted murder, according to the document.
