VENTURA : Woman Accused in Stabbing Testifies

A Ventura woman charged with attempted murder for stabbing her ex-fiance 22 times described the couple’s turbulent affair at her trial Thursday, saying she humiliated herself while trying to keep their relationship alive.

Jurors will have to wait until Monday to hear Jeanette Smith’s version of last year’s stabbing, however, since her chronology of events stopped three days short of the incident.

Smith, 33, testified that she refused to accept the termination of her relationship with Ventura veterinarian Jeffrey K. Saur, even after he packed her belongings and removed them from his house.

After Smith moved back into the house, Saur, 41, told her that she had to leave for good within a month. Instead of planning for life on her own after the Aug. 31 deadline, however, Smith testified that she used the time to try to win Saur back.

“I begged and I pleaded,” Smith said. “I humiliated myself. I degraded myself.”

Smith said that when she returned to Saur’s house after work Aug. 31, she found the driveway blocked and her belongings packed and on the lawn. Intent on suicide, Smith said she went to a church to phone relatives and Saur one last time, and then visited some friends.

During that visit, the friends’ daughter heard on the police scanner that Smith was a homeless woman who was being sought because she might be suicidal. Smith testified that her friends persuaded her to stay with them and to call Saur and tell him that she was all right.

Earlier in the trial, Saur testified that he was stabbed by Smith on Sept. 3 while moving her belongings.

He said Smith kissed him suddenly while he was driving on California 126 in Ventura, blocking his view of the road. When he got out of the car, she stabbed him once, then cut herself and stabbed him 21 more times before she was stopped by an amateur wrestler who was passing by, according to testimony.