A city man accused of stabbing two acquaintances at the Third Street River Valley Trade and Transit Center in December 2023 entered a plea of guilty to two counts of aggravated assault Thursday morning in the courtroom of Lycoming County President Judge Eric Linhardt.

The plea came just moments before Timothy Maddox, 37, was set to face trial on additional charges of criminal attempted murder of the first degree, possessing an instrument of crime and recklessly endangering another person.

Maddox was previously scheduled to enter a guilty plea on Oct. 27, before former President Judge Nancy Butts, but instead, voiced his intention to take the case to trial.

A male victim received a stab wound in the lower abdomen, while a female victim suffered multiple stab wounds, including to her chest, two to her stomach and one in the right bicep.

The stab to the chest punctured the sack around her lung, necessitating the use of a chest tube to drain the fluid around her lung, she previously testified during a December 2023 preliminary hearing before District Judge Aaron Biichle.

Her liver also suffered a laceration, she testified.

The reason for Thursday’s plea was to “take responsibility,” according to Maddox’s guilty plea colloquy.

Maddox acknowledged that the guilty plea constitutes a violation of a probationary sentence he was serving at the time of the stabbings.

That sentence stemmed from an August 2020 incident during which Maddox approached the drive-thru window of a Montoursville bank and submitted a note demanding $500,000.

He ultimately pleaded guilty to a single count of criminal attempted robbery in October 2021, and was sentenced to one year to 729 days in prison and two years probation by former Lycoming County Judge Marc Lovecchio.

Walked through his explanation of the stabbing incident by defense attorney Tyler Calkins, Maddox stated that he had verbally warned the victims to stay away from him because he “didn’t know them like that.”

“I told them to get away from me very nicely because I wasn’t there for them,” Maddox said.

“I told them, ‘I don’t you, you don’t know me, and you don’t want to know me,” he said, adding, “I’m scared of myself because I’ve seen the damage I can do when I’m pushed.”

Suffering from PTSD, Maddox said he lost control of his anger upon feeling as if he was being cornered and blacked out when the female victim wouldn’t let him go.

“I didn’t know she was coming up behind me, and attacked her because I didn’t know if she was going to attack me first,” Maddox said.

“I stopped attacking her when she let me go,” he said.

“It wasn’t my intention to stab them, but they got too close for comfort,” Maddox told the court, adding that the attack was not premeditated.

Assistant District Attorney Jessica Feese added that there had been no physical altercation with the male victim prior to the stabbing.

During the preliminary hearing, the male victim stated that he had known Maddox for “quite a while,” adding that Maddox had lived with the victim’s aunt and uncle at one point.

The female victim had called the male to report that she was being harassed by Maddox when she was attempting to catch a bus at a stop near Campbell and Third streets on Dec. 1, 2023.

Maddox followed the female to the Trade & Transit Center, and once there, the male verbally confronted Maddox about his harassment of a woman with no man present, he testified.

At that point, Maddox asked the victim, “do you want to go,” as he pulled out a knife. The victim replied “if you’re gonna do it, just do it,” according to court testimony, at which point Maddox stabbed the male, whose wound was described as a “flesh wound,” requiring one staple.

During her testimony, the female victim stated that she had known Maddox for a little over a month, and that after hanging out once, Maddox embarked on a pattern of harassment, using a friend’s phone to repeatedly call and text her, in an attempt to get her to leave her boyfriend, she testified.

During their first encounter at the bus stop, Maddox told the female victim, “you and your boyfriend have something coming to you,” she said.

Upon the male victim being stabbed, the female confronted Maddox, at which point Maddox stabbed her.

After falling to the ground after the initial strike, Maddox got on top of her, inflicting three more stabs, according to court testimony.

Maddox was apprehended on Pine Street after a short pursuit.

A folding pocket knife with a three inch blade covered in blood and human flesh was recovered from Maddox’s pocket, police state.

At the time of his arrest, Maddox told police that he did not plan the attack, only doing so in self-defense after being “triggered,” but also stated that the stabbing was “a long time coming,” court documents said.

In his statement to police, Maddox also accused the victims of smoking crack at his house and said that, after telling them not to, they became disrespectful, an affidavit said.

He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 22, 2026.