Nearly one year after a pair of mysterious incidents at a San Jose home, police are investigating a serious attack against the homeowner, who says he was stabbed while he stood inside his front door.
A family living in an upscale neighborhood says they are being targeted—repeatedly. But they don’t know why or by whom. Is this payback or a horrible coincidence?
For the past two years, only in the month of January, for some reason, the Unger family says they have experienced scary and violent situations.
“We think he's been trying to get to us,” John Unger said Monday. “And he just picked this time.”
Unger was watching football on Sunday afternoon when he heard the doorbell ring and saw a young man standing on the porch of his Glenwood Avenue home.
“I usually come out a little bit to talk to people, not wanting them to get in,” Unger said. “And as soon as I got out a little bit, then he immediately took his hands out of his pocket and stabbed me with a knife.”
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The man took off and Unger, and his daughter Nicole, chased after him. Unger ran halfway down the street and stopped. His right leg was covered with blood.
The knife missed an artery by less than an inch.
“I knew I had been stabbed, but I wasn't quite sure how bad it was, and I didn't want this guy to get away,” Unger said.
But this wasn't the first time something like this has happened to the Unger family. Last year, almost to the day, someone vandalized Nicole's car with yellow paint and then slashed her tires. The next night, someone lit their front door on fire.
The Ungers have no idea who is doing this to them.
“I took a very good look at him that time, and I have no idea who he is or anybody who would want to do anything like that to me or my family,” Nicole Unger said.
“I have a hunch that this is a targeted thing,” John Unger said. “Somebody has some sort of personal agenda here.”
The stabbing has shaken up what many neighbors describe as a safe and quiet Willow Glen neighborhood.
“People are out walking their dogs and felt safe. All of a sudden these things are happening,” Willow Glen Neighborhood Association President Richard Zappelli said. “People are getting concerned.”
But, the bigger question for the Ungers: Why would someone want to hurt them?
Not knowing what may happen next has John Unger thinking of moving his family somewhere else.
“My family is too important to me to allow them to be subjected to this kind of behavior, this wanton act of violence,” he said.
The stabbing suspect, believed to be in his late 20s, took off in a faded blue-gray, older model Jeep Cherokee.
San Jose police said the case has been assigned to a detective in the department’s assault unit.
