Testimony heard in trial of man accused of attempted murder

The ex-girlfriend of a man charged with two counts of attempted murder said he struck and bit her before allegedly stabbing her mother and her mother’s partner at a Burbank home in 2015, according to court testimony.

Ashlee Jaquette said in court Friday that her ex-boyfriend, Cameron Reed Hansen, came over unannounced to the Roselli Street home where she lived with her mother on the night of March 3, 2015.

Hansen has been on trial since Feb. 21 for the assault of Jaquette and the attempted murder of Laura Welch and Suzanne Cling — her mother and her mother’s partner, respectively.

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Hansen had been drinking and “seemed slightly manic” when he came over, according to Jaquette. He kept repeatedly asking her for help in finding his vehicle after getting into a crash earlier that night.

The pair had been dating for over two years, but had broken up the day before.

Jaquette testified that she brought him back to her bedroom in an attempt to calm him down. The two soon got into an altercation over her cellphone, she said.

“He got aggressive. He hit the top of my head. I fell to my knees. He pulled my hair and bit the back of my head as he grabbed my phone,” she said.

The attack stemmed from whether or not Jaquette had been seeing anyone else, and Hansen had wanted to see her phone for proof. She said she did, in fact, go on a date with someone the day of the attack.

The altercation caught the attention of Welch and Cling, who were getting ready for bed in another part of the home. Cling said in court Thursday that the two went to Jaquette’s bedroom and saw Hansen pinning Jaquette to the bed.

Jaquette said she couldn’t remember if Hansen pinned her down or not.

Welch was able to pull Hansen away and the two then got into a scuffle, according to Cling.

She said Welch then left the room to call 911. Soon after, she heard Jaquette cry out in pain before feeling a thud on the back of her head.

“It was an odd physical sensation. I went up [to touch my head] and there was blood everywhere,” Cling said. “I felt kind of faint, and I ended up on the floor.”

Cling said she also noticed a slice on her hand and felt a “pricking” sensation on the back of her neck. However, she could not recall seeing Hansen hitting her or even holding a weapon.

Jaquette testified that she briefly blacked out after getting struck by Hansen again. When she came to, she saw Cling covered in blood. She then told the jury that her mother started to scream from the home’s frontyard.

When she went to see what happened, she said she saw Hansen on top of Welch, striking her on the head. Jaquette said she was able to pull him off her mother and saw that Hansen was in possession of a pocketknife.

She said Hansen had used that same knife to threaten her on a previous occasion. He had allegedly used the knife to stab Cling and Welch multiple times.

“He started saying, ‘You did this to me, Ashlee. You did this. Why did you make me do this?’” she said.

Burbank police said Hansen fled as emergency responders arrived on scene. He was arrested a short time later and the knife reportedly used in the attack was recovered from a home several blocks away.

A police photograph of the knife with visible blood stains was shown in court Monday.

Jaquette required three stitches to her head while Welch and Cling were hospitalized for several days. Welch also suffered a collapsed lung while en route to the hospital.

Michael Templeton, a firefighter paramedic with the Burbank Fire Department, and his partner were the first responders to the scene that night. Templeton testified last Wednesday that the stabbing is still vivid in his mind despite responding to hundreds of incidents since 2015.

“As firefighters, a lot of times traumas … they get ingrained in our memory,” he said. “Especially with three people that got stabbed in the same scene, it was a very vivid memory for me.”

In addition to the two counts of attempted murder, Hansen was also charged with one count of injuring a spouse or girlfriend, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and faces life in prison if convicted. The trial is ongoing.

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Andy Nguyen, andy.nguyen@latimes.com

Twitter: @Andy_Truc