A woman who has repeatedly stabbed people or chased and threatened them with knives for 21 years is accused of fatally stabbing a man Thursday in an apartment near University of Denver.
Audrey Eve Cahow, 51, was arrested in the investigation of first-degree murder at an apartment on the 3500 block of East Asbury Avenue just before 5 p.m. Thursday, said Detective John White, Denver police spokesman.
Cahow is being held in intensive care at Denver Health Medical Center with stab wounds, said Capt. Frank Gale, Denver County Jail spokesman.
“I don’t know how she was stabbed,” Gale said.
Anthony Martinez, 62, died of a single stab wound to the chest and heart, said Michelle Weiss-Samaras, Denver’s chief deputy coroner.
Cahow and Martinez got into an argument before she stabbed him with a knife, White said.
Cahow has previously served numerous jail and prison sentences for assault and domestic violence dating to July 10, 1987, when she stabbed her husband, Paul Vaughn, who was 62 at the time. She was then 35.
She was charged with attempted murder and pleaded guilty to second-degree assault in a plea bargain in which she was sentenced to two years’ probation and required to stay in a halfway house.
On June 2, 1990, Cahow told police she stabbed Vaughn five times in the back and the side.
“I did it. … He was pointing his finger in my face,” she said to a police officer, according to his report.
Cahow was charged with attempted murder a second time but entered a plea in which the charge was dismissed in exchange for her pleading guilty to second-degree assault.
She was sentenced to six years of intensive probation Oct. 15, 1990.
In May 1995, she was charged with brandishing a weapon, assault and threats.
On Feb. 15, 1999, Cahow “snuck into the emergency room by the triage area” of St. Joseph Hospital and threatened a woman with a 16-inch knife, according to Denver District Court records. She demanded to see a doctor to treat a hand injury.
“The defendant waved the knife at everybody that was in her vicinity and threatened to kill anybody that comes near her,” a police report says.
Cahow was charged with felony menacing with a deadly weapon.
She was sentenced to five years’ intensive probation and later served 18 months in prison when she repeatedly violated probation, according to district court records.
On July 22, 2004, Cahow threatened to kill a neighbor and chased her with a knife. She was sentenced to 10 days in jail.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
