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Attempted murder case of Kathy Hoyt moves closer to trial

Alan Riquelmy
ariquelmy@theunion.com
Kathy Jo Hoyt
COURTESY PHOTO

The victim in an attempted murder case testified at a Thursday, Dec. 7, preliminary hearing that he didn’t believe Kathy Jo Hoyt was trying to kill him.

However, a Grass Valley police officer told a Nevada County judge someone heard Hoyt threaten to kill Raymond McDaniel hours before his stabbing occurred in a homeless camp off Sutton Way on Sept. 30.

The case against Hoyt, who remained Thursday in the Nevada County Jail under $400,000 in bond, will proceed toward trial after Superior Court Judge Robert Tice-Raskin found probable cause on charges of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon. He also found probable cause on an enhancement of inflicting great bodily injury to another person.



Hoyt is next scheduled for court on Dec. 18.

On Thursday McDaniel, who called Hoyt a friend, testified that he was reading a book at his campsite when Hoyt approached him. She began stabbing him on the back and neck, though at the time McDaniel thought she merely was punching him.



“I didn’t even realize it was a knife,” McDaniel said. “There was no pain or nothing. I just started feeling warm.”

McDaniel said he raised his hand at one point, receiving a cut. Hoyt then changed. McDaniel called her expression a “what happened kind of face.” She then fled the area.

McDaniel walked some 600 feet to a bus stop on Sutton Way, where he was spotted lying down. Police arrived and McDaniel, still conscious, was taken to the hospital, Cpl. James Johnson said.

The police investigation led officers to nearby homeless camps. There police heard that Hoyt twice threatened McDaniel’s life, Officer Melvon Bird said.

Under cross-examination, Bird testified that people thought Hoyt was joking.

Someone at the camp handed an officer the knife he said Hoyt used. Police detained Hoyt, and Detective Clinton Lovelady interviewed her two days later.

“She said that Joe had been telling people that they were in a relationship,” Lovelady said, using McDaniel’s middle name. “That they had been sleeping together.”

Lovelady also testified that Hoyt asked about McDaniel’s condition.


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