Woman Who Fatally Stabbed Ex-Boyfriend Is Freed

Criminal charges will not be filed against a Pacoima woman who fatally stabbed her ex-boyfriend at a crowded pizzeria, because she acted in self-defense, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Myron L. Jenkins said the dead man, Robert Bridges, 28, of Apple Valley, assaulted Cynthia Stafford and threatened to kill her before she stabbed him to death Saturday night with a knife she bought at a supermarket near the restaurant.

The two were quarreling over Bridges’ alleged sexual abuse of Stafford’s 3-year-old son, investigators said.

Los Angeles police detectives said they interviewed more than 15 witnesses to reconstruct the prolonged confrontation that began when Bridges arrived, uninvited and intoxicated, at the Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theater restaurant in Granada Hills about 7:30 p.m.

Stafford, 23, who had recently broken up with Bridges after living with him for about six months, was celebrating her son’s third birthday with about 15 children and adult friends.

Witnesses told police that when Bridges showed up, Stafford confronted him with the allegation that he had molested the boy. Bridges admitted abusing the child, but was unrepentant and wanted to participate in the party, because he had contributed money toward the cake. Bridges grew louder and more abusive until employees threw him out of the restaurant.

At that point, Bridges told the restaurant manager “I am going to kill the (expletive),” Jenkins said.

Later, Stafford left the restaurant to use a telephone outside the nearby market. Bridges followed, smashed her head into the store’s plate-glass window, gripped her head in a hammerlock and bit her lip, witnesses told police.

Stafford bit his arm, broke loose and fled into the market. Bridges followed, but market employees ejected him.

Jenkins said Stafford bought a 10-inch steak knife before returning to the restaurant. At about 9 p.m., Bridges reappeared.

“She screamed, ‘Stay back! Get away! You raped my son!’ ” the prosecutor said, but Bridges ignored her and advanced.

Stafford slashed his neck with the knife, then stepped back and again begged Bridges to stay away. But he continued to advance, taunting her about molesting her child, witnesses told police.

“He said, ‘If you are going to kill me, then do it,’ ” district attorney’s spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said.

At that point, Stafford stabbed him in the chest and stomach, Gibbons said. Bridges died several hours later at a hospital.

Jenkins said Wednesday that Stafford had a right to defend herself against an attack that she had good reason to believe was imminent. “She did not have to wait for him to beat her up again,” he said.

When Stafford was arrested, she was bleeding and bruised and “that pushed the scales of justice towards the side of self-defense,” Jenkins said.

Stafford was released from jail Wednesday night, police said.