Charges: Fugitive stabbed, severely wounded neck of teen Twin Cities Fleet Farm employee

The stabbing of an employee at a Twin Cities Fleet Farm over the weekend left her with a through-and-through wound to her neck and sent her to the hospital in critical condition, according to charges filed Tuesday.

Gerald Dwayne Hudson, 31, of Kansas City, Kan., was charged in Carver County District Court with first- and second-degree assault in connection with the stabbing of the 17-year-old worker about 2 p.m. Sunday at the store just off Hwy. 212 near the Jonathan Parkway exit in Carver.

The stabbing caused “significant blood loss” and left her with an entry wound on one side of the back of her neck and an exit wound on the other side.

Hudson appeared in court and remains jailed in lieu of a $100,000 cash bond. His next court hearing is scheduled for Dec. 13. Court records do not yet list an attorney for him.

The charges against Hudson say the employee was in critical but stable condition at HCMC, but there has been no update on her condition since soon after the attack that was carried out by a man she did not know.

Officials have yet to release the teenager’s identity, but a friend’s postings on social media identified the victim as Ava Larson. The postings included photos of a smiling Larson and noted that she has since left the hospital.

At the time of his arrest, roughly an hour after the assault, Hudson was wanted by federal authorities in connection with absconding from a residential re-entry center in July 2020 while on supervised release stemming from his sentence in Las Vegas for being a felon and illegally possessing a gun on a college campus.

According to the criminal complaint and the sheriff’s office:

Sheriff’s deputies arrived at the store to find the employee receiving emergency aid at the customer service desk. She lost consciousness at one point but quickly regained it.

In-store surveillance video captured Hudson walking toward the employee and “making a striking movement” toward the employee while her back was to him. Witnesses told law enforcement they heard a female scream something to the effect of “he just stabbed me” before seeing Hudson run away.

Hudson fled into the parking lot and drove off in an SUV.

Deputies spotted the SUV in Chanhassen and “conducted a high-risk traffic stop” in the Jersey Mike’s fast-food restaurant parking lot near 78th Street and Powers Boulevard. He was arrested there without incident.

While in jail, Hudson denied stabbing anyone or even having a weapon, but acknowledged, “I just, well, hit her with a plastic thing.”

He explained that while in the store, he asked the employee where to find a particular item, and “maybe she said something that didn’t sound right to me,” the complaint quoted him as saying. That’s when he picked up a “thing,” as he called it, and hit the employee with it.

Hudson then asked a detective whether the victim had “passed away.”

Neither the charges nor the sheriff’s office has disclosed what was used to stab the employee or whether that item was found.