Man fatally stabbed in South Sacramento bank parking lot — deputies arrest homeless man

Relatives of an 18-year-old south Sacramento man who was allegedly stabbed to death by a homeless man in a bank parking lot say they’re struggling to cope with the senseless, random brutality of it all.

Someone called 911 to report a stabbing on the 7000 block of Stockton Boulevard near Florin Road in the Wells Fargo Bank parking lot around 10 p.m. Thursday, said Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Sgt. Tess Deterding.

When deputies arrived, they found a man and a woman who had both been stabbed. The man later died from his wounds at a hospital; the woman’s stab wound to her lower body wasn’t life-threatening, Deterding said.

Deputies arrested a “known transient in the area,” who’d apparently gotten into an argument with the victims, Deterding said. The suspect had never met the victims before, she said.

Deterding didn’t release the suspect’s name, saying detectives still needed to do photo lineups with witnesses to confirm the suspect was the one who stabbed the pair.

In an interview Saturday, Cindy Thavisack identified her nephew, Joshua Thavisack, as the fatal victim.

“He just started life,“ she said.

Joshua Thavisack, 18, had graduated from Hiram Johnson High School last year and been living with his uncle, Sayanh “Sy” Thavisack who had died last month from a heart attack at the age of 41, Cindy Thavisack said.

Joshua Thavisack had been working for FedEx, and had plans to eventually go to college, she said. He had two brothers and two sisters.

In a GoFundMe post to raise money to cover the cost of Joshua Thavisack’s funeral, one of his sisters described him going to deposit money into a local bank after work. He got into an argument with the man wielding a kitchen knife in the parking lot. The post describes Joshua Thavisack getting stabbed over and over as he tried to escape to his car.

The woman who was stabbed was one of Thavisack’s aunts, his family members say. Meanwhile, the suspect waited in the parking lot for deputies to arrive, the fundraising page says.

Cindy Thavisack said the family is struggling to cope with her nephew’s senseless death so soon after her brother’s. Cindy Thavisack said Joshua was extremely close with his uncle.

“It’s been really, really hard,” she said.

Alex Gomes-Coelho, head football coach at Hiram Johnson, said Joshua Thavisack played offensive and defensive line his junior year — a season the team went 0-10. He remembers him being friendly and working hard, even when the team struggled.

“He was a kid who, even though we were not doing too well, he was one of those who was going to go 100 percent to the end of the year,” Gomes-Coelho said.

This story was originally published January 18, 2020 at 4:59 PM.