Gifford man gets two life terms for drug-induced knife attack days before Christmas 2015

Dan Garcia | Special to TCPalm

Show Caption Hide Caption Indian River Crime rate is on the rise - 2017 Statistics The Florida Department of Law Enforcement reported 3,341 murders, rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, burglaries, larcenies and motor vehicle thefts throughout the county, the seven crimes tracked by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. That's up 7 percent from 2016. GINNY BEAGAN/TCPALM

VERO BEACH — A 31-year-old Gifford man who has spent most of his life in prison explained to a judge he was "messed up" when he abruptly attacked the host of a Christmas party and stabbed him 18 times before turning his knife on a guest who tried to stop the attack.

Circuit Judge Cynthia L. Cox sentenced the attacker, Travis Gordon, to two life terms in prison because he is a habitual felony offender who was released from prison the same year he attacked his victims at the Christmas party in 2015.

Both men survived the sudden assault.

Assistant State Attorney Brian Workman told Cox that Gordon was eligible for a maximum sentence as a repeat offender because he was released from prison just five months before the Christmas party attack.

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Workman told the court Gordon was released from prison "after serving an eight-year sentence for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon."

Cox weighed Gordon's criminal record, which included 20 previous arrests and seven convictions.

"The defendant was released from the Florida Department of Corrections on July 20, 2015," Cox said in making her ruling. "Then the defendant was attempting to commit murder."

Gordon's attorney, Patrick E. MacRae, pleaded insanity on Gordon's behalf, saying there was no logical reason for Gordon's attack on his Christmas party hosts.

On July 6, a six-man jury in Cox's courtroom found Gordon guilty of two counts of attempted first-degree murder after Workman argued that Gordon was not insane, just "drunk and high" when he attacked his Christmas party hosts on Dec. 23, 2015.

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On Tuesday, MacRae called Dr. Timothy Tavis, a West Palm Beach psychologist, to the stand to reiterate that Gordon was legally insane when he stabbed his victims.

Tavis testified that one reason Gordon was abusing drugs such as ecstasy, methamphetamines, marijuana and flakka is because people with mental illnesses use drugs to cope with their conditions.

Tavis testified that Gordon suffers from a schizo-effective disorder and was legally insane at the time of the assault.

"As long as he is medicated, he is not legally insane," Tavis testified.

However, two other psychologists testified at trial that Gordon is not legally insane and that his mental issues stem from continual drug abuse.

Given a chance to testify Tuesday, Gordon told Cox: "I just want everyone to understand what I was going through. I had my mind messed up. I couldn't get nobody to believe me. I couldn't get nobody to understand me.

"I couldn't deal with what was going on. I had identified my problem and was working to better myself. I was staying on medication. Now I feel like prison ..."

He stopped there.

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Gordon's stabbing victims, Gifford residents Jeffrey Williams, 52, and Steve Simmons, 43, were not in court Tuesday. But during Gordon's trial, Williams testified he was sitting in a chair in his home in the 4500 block of 45th Street when Gordon, a party guest, suddenly lunged and stabbed him multiple times before Simmons came to his aid, getting stabbed in the process.

Williams spent four months at Lawnwood Regional Medical Center recovering from his wounds.

After the sentencing, MacRae said: "What do you do with people with these kinds of disorders? I don't know. This seems like a culmination of a lifetime of problems that seemed inevitable."

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