Luna Serrano booking photo Teton County Sheriff’s Office
Before allegedly stabbing her ex-boyfriend in the head with scissors while he slept soundly in his cabin, police say Luna Serrano threw down the gauntlet to her former boyfriend via text, writing “Let’s fight to the death.”
Now, Serrano, 48, is facing a raft of criminal charges including aggravated battery, burglary and attempted first-degree murder, according to a statement posted on Facebook from the Teton County Sheriff’s Office announcing her arrest.
First reported by Cowboy State Daily, the allegations against Serrano detail a wild night for Derek Hawkes and his new girlfriend, Manju Alexander. Alexander told police that as she slept on the first floor of Hawkes’ Idaho cabin last week, she woke to the sound of her boyfriend and a woman loudly arguing. The woman, she said, “sounded like a lunatic.”
She grabbed Hawkes’ cellphone and fled outside to his truck, she reportedly said, sheltering beneath it as she called police.
Alexander reportedly told police that earlier that same day, Hawkes had begun to collect paperwork to file a restraining order against Serrano for breaking into his home days before. Teton County Sheriff’s deputies reportedly located a copy of the incomplete restraining order after surveying the home following Serrano’s arrest.
When police arrived, they said Alexander was in tears and panicking as she gestured to where the brawling former lovers were entangled. She later told them that Serrano had texted Hawkes, “let’s fight to the death,” but there was no further context to the message given. Serrano later allegedly admitted to police she sent the text to Hawkes.
As officers quickly surveyed the scene, they reportedly found Hawkes clad in just his underwear pinning a fully-clothed Serrano to the ground face-first with her hands over her head. She was clad in two jackets with a headlight strapped to her forehead. One of the jackets was on backward, police said.
After separating the two, blood was seen covering Hawkes thanks to a laceration in his neck and chest, police said. Police reportedly noted that Serrano was also spattered in blood and had a lump on her forehead as well as bruising near her eye, though she had no stab wounds.
East Idaho News reported Serrano told Teton County officers that Hawkes and Hawkes’ landlord had kicked her out of the cabin where she had been staying until recently. She also claimed she never burgled Hawkes’ place days earlier but that she had come by to repay a loan, though she allegedly admitted to police that she was angry during that visit because she had learned that Hawkes was dating someone new.
In her reported version of events, the 48-year-old woman allegedly told police that when she approached the cabin, she parked her truck in a nearby parking lot about a half mile away and then snuck up on the residence. Police said later that a pipe and marijuana were found in the car and Serrano allegedly admitted that the drugs belonged to her.
Once at the cabin, she allegedly claimed Hawkes told her to come in and she did — without scissors. Hawkes, however, said Serrano only managed to enter the cabin because the door was busted after the two had a prior spat. During that incident, Hawkes claimed Serrano had locked him out of his cabin and he had to mangle the door to get inside, causing it to warp. It wouldn’t shut nor lock correctly after that, he claimed.
According to police, Serrano said once inside the second-story loft where Hawkes was sleeping, things escalated quickly.
She accused Hawkes of punching her in the head before she found a pair of scissors and started stabbing him in self-defense. The brawling became so severe, she claimed, that they somehow tumbled together off the lofted bedroom onto the living room floor below.
But police scrutinized her account, according to the East Idaho News, and did not believe her as she had trouble recalling the exact order of events. According to Hawkes, Serrano stabbed him in his head while he slept, and then his ribs.
He accused her of shoving him off the loft ladder after he fell out of his bed writhing in pain and, as the Cowboy State Daily reported, with the wind fully knocked out of him.
Hawkes said Serrano, whom he said he dated for a little over a month but had been friends with for 15 years, kept attacking and stabbing him, piercing him with the scissors at least five times.
Defending himself, he said he punched Serrano on the right side of her face and had her pinned down when police arrived.
When investigating the crime scene, police said they found pools of blood strewn throughout the property, including a “significant amount” on a blanket, on the bed in the loft and on a dresser.
The lower level of the cabin was also smeared with blood and so was the couch where Alexander had been sleeping moments before the chaos.
Serrano had hit hard times, Hawkes later told police. She was allegedly homeless since his landlord banned her from being in the cabin, he said.
Neighbors interviewed by Teton County sheriffs reportedly told them that Hawkes had recently apologized to people in the neighborhood for the disturbance at the cabin involving Serrano on Sept. 17. That was when she had allegedly tried stabbing him in the ribs, he told police – Serrano’s aggravated battery charge is related to that incident. A neighbor allegedly told police that Hawkes said he had tried to break up with her and she went berserk.
During that prior incident, Serrano allegedly told Hawkes, “I will murder you in your own house,” East Idaho News reported.
Prosecutors in Teton County did not immediately respond to a request for comment to Law&Crime on Tuesday nor did a public defender assigned to Serrano’s case. Hawkes could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.
Serrano went before a magistrate judge last week for her initial appearance and bond was set at $250,000. Her next court date is Oct. 11 where, if able to post bond, she will be released with an ankle monitor, according to the sheriff’s office. She has also been ordered to have no contact with Hawkes or Alexander.
The aggravated battery charge poses a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. The same penalty applies for attempted first-degree murder. The burglary charge carries a maximum 10-year sentence.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
