By Nathan Hardin
nhardin@salisburypost.com
CHINA GROVE — Richard Trey Wright walked into the China Grove police department Aug. 20 covered in blood and told authorities his friend had been stabbed and he had almost lost his life after a Saturday night party turned violent.
But after 21/2 weeks of investigating, police weren’t buying the story told by Wright and his mother about three uninvited Hispanic men who came to the party and began causing trouble.
Instead, China Grove investigators late Tuesday arrested the 18-year-old, his mother Kelley Annette Wright, 46, and the friend who had been stabbed, 20-year-old Cody Benjamin Woolf.
All three are charged with attempted murder. They were in jail Wednesday night under $100,000 bond apiece.
Woolf and Kleiber Madriz went to the hospital after the Aug. 20 party at 2285 U.S. 152. Woolf was treated and released the night of the incident, but Madriz was left in critical condition at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte.
Madriz was released from the hospital Sunday and said the amount of time he spent there shows who the real aggressor was on Aug. 20.
“There’s a difference between getting released in just one night” and lying in a hospital bed for two weeks, Madriz said in a phone interview. “You can see who got the worse end of it.”
Madriz said he came to Salisbury to see a friend, but after arriving in Rowan County, the man said he was going to a party and told Madriz and his friends to come along.
“We were just going to my buddy’s house and he said we’re going to go to a party,” Madriz said. “They’re cool people.”
But 30 minutes later, Madriz pulled out of the driveway at 2285 U.S. 152, clutching two stab wounds in a vehicle that had shattered windows.
Madriz said he arrived at the party about 10 p.m. but never made it out of the first room he walked into, the kitchen.
Madriz said that although Kelley Wright told the Post in an Aug. 23 interview she was not at the party, she was there and “very impaired.”
Wright, who operates Annette’s Kennel & Boarding at her house, maintains that she was not at the party but at a friend’s house when police called to inform her of the incident. After receiving the call, Wright said, she panicked and cut through a brush thicket to hurry to the home, cutting her legs.
China Grove Police Sgt. D.P. Walther said Wright emerged from the brush after investigators arrived on the scene and told police that she had gotten a call about officers at her house.
When officers asked for her phone to see the call, she told them she lost it in the woods. Moments later, Walther said, Wright’s phone rang. It was in her back pocket.
Madriz said the Wrights and Woolf never asked them to leave, but he said they didn’t seem to have the same demeanor as the others at the party.
He said Kelley Wright was wandering around the party looking for someone named “Scooter,” who she, her son and Woolf believed had touched Woolf’s girlfriend inappropriately.
When Kelley Wright saw Madriz, he said she became convinced he was the person who had touched Woolf’s girlfriend.
“I remember getting cornered in the kitchen and this guy’s mother starts raining haymakers, wild punches, on me and from there all hell broke loose,” Madriz said.
In the Aug. 23 interview with Kelley Wright and her son, Trey, the Wrights said three Hispanic men came to the home uninvited. Trey Wright told the Post he didn’t know any of them.
Madriz, however, said Wright went to school with several of Madriz’s friends who were at the party that night.
“From what I know, about three of those guys went to school with these guys,” Madriz said. “So they were friends. It’s not that he didn’t know the guys that we were with.”
Still, Trey Wright “looked at us three and said, ‘One of you is going to fight me or one of you guys is going down,’ ” Madriz said. “We were outnumbered like nine to four.”
Madriz said Woolf and Trey Wright were aggressive in the conflict, but that Kelley Wright threw the first punch. After that, Madriz said, the party almost instantly turned into a brawl, spilling out into the driveway and yard.
“Trey’s mom started the whole thing. She started it. And it was like, here we go,” Madriz said. “Before I knew it, I was stabbed.”
Madriz said he tried to flee the party, but was cornered in the kitchen as Woolf and Trey Wright continued assaulting him.
“Trey and Cody were beating me up,” Madriz said. “That’s when I got the knife from one of them and tried to save my life. It was like something out of a movie.”
After being stabbed, Madriz made it to a friend’s car. The two stab wounds had punctured a lung and nicked his spleen.
According to Madriz, Kelley Wright continued attacking them, knocking out windows in his friend’s car with the wooden end of a shovel.
Madriz said his friend drove away from the house while trying to apply pressure to his stab wounds. The driver wasn’t familiar with the area and the two ended up making contact with China Grove police in a residential area.
On Aug. 23, Trey Wright said he wasn’t aware of anyone other than Woolf being stabbed.
Now he, Woolf and his mother are facing felony attempted murder charges. Woolf and Trey Wright are also facing charges of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and Trey Wright has an additional charge of felony obstruction of justice.
Kelley Wright was arrested at her home Tuesday night and, according to a press release, blocked officers’ attempts to enter the home. She is also being charged with resist, delay and obstruction of an officer, two counts of simple assault, five counts of providing alcohol to minors and damage to personal property.
Madriz said he turns 24 on Sept. 3.
“I’m lucky I’m even seeing my birthday.”