Anne Arundel County police (L), Getty Images (R)
A Maryland man has been jailed for 10 years after he stabbed a woman with a syringe filled with his semen, reports say.
On 18 February of last year, Thomas Byron Stemen, 51, stabbed Katie Peters with a syringe while she was shopping at Christopher's Fine Foods in Churchton, Maryland.
In CCTV footage, obtained by local outlet KTVU, Stemen can be seen entering the store behind Peters and stabbing her in the buttocks as she returned a shopping cart.
Peters told Fox 5 that after the man stabbed her, he leaned in and said, "I know, it feels like a bee sting, doesn't it?"
She told the outlet that she initially thought Stemen had burned her with a cigarette and started yelling at him.
When she got in her car to drive away she said she felt a burning sensation in her leg and called her son to say she might have been stabbed with a heroin needle.
She told Fox 5 that she went to the doctor to figure out what had happened and was taking medication as a precautionary measure.
"I have no clue what was in that needle. It could be rat poison, HIV, trucks, I don't know what's in that needle," Peters told the outlet at the time.
When police investigated the incident they discovered multiple syringes in Stemen's car and home, all full of his semen, The Independent reported.
Investigators also said that Stemen had attempted to attack two other victims in the store on the same day, according to KTVU.
Stemen was arrested and charged with first and second-degree assault and reckless endangerment.
The judge in the case called the attack "absolutely bizarre and disturbing," KTVU said.
Stemen had recently moved to the state from Ohio, and had six prior convictions on his record, the outlet said.
