Sacramento sheriff’s detectives identify witness in fatal stabbing outside bank
The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday announced that it has identified a witness in a stabbing a day after investigators released security camera video of the man trying to intervene in the fatal confrontation.
The witness seen in the video outside a Wells Fargo Bank in south Sacramento left the scene before deputies could speak to him about the stabbing that killed 18-year-old Joshua Thavisack earlier this year.
Detectives have only identified the witness, but they had not yet made contact with the witness on Thursday afternoon, said Sgt. Tess Deterding, a Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman.
Roosevelt Hardley, a 64-year-old transient man, was taken into custody at the scene that night and has since been charged with murder and assault with a deadly weapon in Thavisack’s death. He remains in custody at the Sacramento County Jail awaiting prosecution.
Homicide detectives on Wednesday released the video of the witness when the stabbing occurred about 10 p.m on Jan. 16, outside the bank near Florin Road and Stockton Boulevard, a few blocks east of Highway 99. On Thursday afternoon, sheriff’s officials said detectives had identified the witness. The officials also thanked county residents for their help in this case.
Thavisack’s family has told The Sacramento Bee that the young man was with his aunt, who also was stabbed that night but survived. In a Jan. 17 GoFundMe post, one of Thavisack’s sisters wrote that her brother was going to deposit money at bank after work when he got into an argument with a man wielding a kitchen knife in the parking lot.
The witness seen in the security camera video arrived in his truck and tried to intervene in the confrontation between Hardley and Thavisack, Deterding said.
This story was originally published March 5, 2020 at 1:53 PM.
