UES Juice Stab Suspect Fled Cops With Bag Of Wigs: DA

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — When officers came knocking on the door of Chala Jamison, the person accused and charged with the attempted murder of an Upper East Side juice shop worker, they didn't get a response. But they heard movement.

That movement, according to police and prosecutors, was Jamison grabbing a bag of wigs and nails before bolting to her East 56th Street fire escape.

Jamison, 23, climbed from the fire escape to a neighboring building, said Assistant District Attorney Zachary Kaplan, and tried to enter an apartment. Despite telling her neighbor not to call the police, officers found and arrested Jamison on the fire escape.

After describing the acrobatics, the judge accepted the Manhattan District Attorney's office request for remand.

The arraignment comes just a day after gruesome video of the stabbing was published by the Daily News, showing how the 39-year-old shop worker was repeatedly stabbed and slashed for nearly 30 seconds straight..

Injured worker Luis Morocho Vasquez, who appeared at a news conference on Wednesday with the United Bodegas of America outside of the Juice Island store he worked at in Savoy Plaza near East 61st Street and Third Avenue, told reporters that the suspected stabber, Jamison, started arguing with him when she didn't have enough cash for her $12 drink.

According to the official complaint, the argument began over a declined credit card.

After giving her the beverage for free, Vasquez said she threatened to return to kill him, prompting a call police who told him there was nothing they could do in response to a threat.

"I never think she's gonna come back," he told CBS2 shortly after his release from the hospital. But two hours later, she did.

“Like she promised, she came back and she stabbed him numerous times across the head, the arm, the face and almost killed him,” Fernando Mateo, former Republican mayoral hopeful and a bodega association spokesperson, told reporters on Wednesday.

“If someone threatens to assault or harm you, the Police Department should be able to make an arrest. Evidently, they did not. Because they cannot,” Mateo said, according to the Daily News.

"I turned around, there was the lady with a knife," Vasquez, an immigrant from Ecuador, told CBS2.

The nearly 30 seconds of repeated stabs and slashes resulted in stitches on his neck, head staples and damage to his arm and hand requiring further surgery, according to reports. In addition to the blood and injuries, prosecutors say Jamison also left behind a broken acrylic nail, which matched others she was found with when arrested.

Photos from the Daily News show Vasquez bandaged and in a wheelchair at Wednesday's press conference.

Juice Island owner Sam Alherish, 64, told the Daily News that Vasquez was "the nicest person I ever saw," and was even considering selling the juice shop to him by the end of the summer.

"Now I have to be here all the time. I’m really scared,” he said to the Daily News.

Jamison, who lived just blocks away on East 56th Street, was arrested and charged with attempted murder this week.

She'll remain in Rikers Island until her next court date later this month.