Man accused of stabbing his own child after apparently thinking someone was in bed with his wife

Provo police have arrested a man who they say stabbed his own child in the foot after drunkenly mistaking pillows for a person in bed with his wife.

Officers got a call about the stabbing on Wednesday, according to a probable cause statement. The mother and the child were on their way to the hospital when police arrived and took the suspect into custody.

Police interviewed the mother at the hospital and she said her husband was drinking in the middle of the night while she and her children slept. The husband began yelling around 3 a.m., which woke their 23-month-old daughter who was in bed with the mother. The husband then came into the room and began to yell at his wife, who told him to leave.

As he was leaving, he turned back and demanded to know who was in the bed. The mother told police that she was on one side of the bed and the child was in the middle of the bed. The other side of the bed was empty but there was a pile of pillows and blankets. The mother said the husband pulled out his pocketknife and stabbed that side of the bed.

The child, who had been crying the whole time, began to cry harder and the mother realized she was bleeding. The mother asked her son-in-law to take her to the hospital, where the child needed to get stitches on her foot.

The husband cried when speaking to police, according to the probable cause statement. He didn’t admit to stabbing the bed but he also didn’t deny it. He told police he had been drinking.

Police said there were cut marks and blood on the blankets in the couple’s bedroom.