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Man who stabbed 2 over Social Security check sentenced to 50 years

Posted at 6:39 PM, May 01, 2014
and last updated 2014-05-01 18:39:09-04

A man convicted of stabbing two people over a Social Security check last October, was sentenced in a Norfolk court on Thursday.

Jessie E. Bishop was sentenced to 50 years in prison for attacking Bobbi and Chuck Howe.

Minutes after his sentencing, the couple spoke to NewsChannel 3.

“I’m feeling a lot of jubilation. I feel that we don’t have to worry about anything anymore and I think the sentence he got was justified and he’s not going to hurt anybody,” says Chuck Howe

The judge told the courtroom it was one of most senseless and unexplainable acts she’s ever seen.

The Howe’s testified in court that on that October night, Bishop slit their throats with a butcher knife, then barricaded their home so they couldn’t leave.

The Howe’s invited Bishop into their home two and a half years ago when he didn’t have a place to go.

At his sentencing, Bishop cried while he apologized to the couple and thanked them for taking him. As for the night he attacked them, he said he was high on heroin.

“I can honestly say that when he said he was sorry, I actually saw the young man that I helped two and a half years ago. I didn’t see the man who attacked us that night, not at all,” Bobbi Howe says.

The apology is something Bobbi Howe is hoping to one day accept, despite the terror that Bishop caused her.

“It’s going to take a long time. This is just the start. It’s going to take an awful long time,” she says.

But as for her husband Chuck…

“I didn’t believe a word he said… I can’t forgive him. There’s only one man who can forgive any body and I’m not that one man,” he says.