Montgomery County judge rejects 15-year sentence in attempted domestic murder case
CHRISTIANSBURG — A Montgomery County judge on Thursday rejected a proposed 15-year prison term for a man who stabbed his wife in the neck during a drug-fueled attack that ended only when a sheriff’s deputy shot him.
Rusty Nevian Sutphin’s actions last year were “extraordinarily violent,” were committed in the presence of Sutphin’s wife’s teenage daughter, and followed a history of prior criminal convictions, Circuit Court Judge Mike Fleenor said. The punishment that prosecution and defense recommended — a 60-year prison sentence, with 15 years to serve and the rest suspended — was “wholly inadequate,” Fleenor said.
“But for the efforts of law enforcement, it likely would have been a murder,” Fleenor said.
The judge’s comments ended what was to have been a sentencing hearing for Sutphin, 39, who pleaded guilty in May to attempted murder, aggravated malicious wounding, abduction, and child abuse or neglect. Fleenor said the convictions that he imposed after Sutphin’s pleas would stand.
But the judge said that since he could not go along with the sentencing recommendation that both prosecution and defense were presenting, he would offer to stand aside and let another judge set Sutphin’s punishment.
Defense attorney Dennis Nagel of Christiansburg and Montgomery County Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Rachel Shrader said that they would like to offer their 15-year proposal to another judge.
Sutphin faces a maximum possible sentence of life plus 25 years behind bars, though sentencing guidelines suggested an upper limit of about 29 years.
A date was not set for a new sentencing hearing, pending Chief Circuit Court Judge Lee Harrell naming someone to take over the case.
Sutphin, who has a Floyd County address listed in court records, was arrested at the end of an Aug. 7, 2021, incident at the Christiansburg home of his wife, Melissa Sutphin.
According to statements at earlier hearings, Melissa Sutphin got off work that day, picked up her 16-year-old daughter, and went home. Rusty Sutphin was already there and was drugged and paranoid. He thought his wife had hired someone to kill him, and that the assassin was hiding in the house.
Rusty Sutphin held a knife to his wife’s neck and her daughter called 911. Christiansburg police and Montgomery County sheriff’s deputies arrived. They told Sutphin to drop the weapon but instead he began cutting Melissa Sutphin. A deputy shot Rusty Sutphin in the pelvis.
On Thursday, before the judge turned down the proposed sentence, Melissa Sutphin took the witness stand and testified that while what happened to her was wrong, her husband had been a good partner and father. Rusty Sutphin was in a “drug psychosis” when he attacked her, Melissa Sutphin said.
“I just wanted to paint the picture that Rusty has never been an abuser … He has an addiction problem,” Melissa Sutphin said.
At the defense table, Rusty Sutphin wiped his eyes and sniffed as his wife spoke.
Fleenor asked Melissa Sutphin if he could see the scar from the attack, and she pushed her long hair away to show a mark running down the side of her neck. The judge asked how the attack had affected her.
Melissa Sutphin said that it had changed her life in an instant.
