PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — A 16-year-old girl who survived 17 stab wounds after her ex-boyfriend ambushed her outside a restaurant is now facing a lifetime of recovery, while her attacker will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Spencer Pearson, 20, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on November 22, 2024, after pleading guilty to two counts of first-degree attempted murder with a weapon and one count of aggravated battery causing serious bodily injury. The sentencing brings a measure of closure to a case that began with a teenage breakup and spiraled into a brutal, daylight attack that left three people injured and a community shaken.
The attack unfolded on June 3, 2023, at Mr. Chubby’s Wings on A1A in Ponte Vedra Beach, a coastal suburb of Jacksonville. Madison Schemmel, then 16, had come to the restaurant with her mother, Jackie Roget, her friend Chloe, and other family members to watch the women’s college softball World Series.
It was supposed to be a day of escape from the nightmare that had consumed her life since breaking up with Pearson in April 2023.
But Pearson had other plans. He had been stalking Madison for weeks, leaving notes on her vehicle, following her around town, creating 𝒻𝒶𝓀𝑒 social media accounts, and sending threatening messages. One TikTok message read: “Y’all going to get yours.”
That threat became a horrifying reality in the restaurant’s parking lot.
“I remember finally reaching my car and hearing my mother scream,” Madison said in her victim impact statement. “Knowing my mother, I could hear her fear. I could hear that whatever was happening was not good.”
Surveillance footage and witness accounts paint a chilling picture of the ambush. Pearson had been sitting inside the restaurant, watching Madison’s family the entire time. When Madison and her mother walked to their car, Pearson rushed out armed with a knife.
“I turned around and saw the defendant running towards me faster than I had ever seen him run before,” Madison recalled. “Not knowing what was coming next, I turned and attempted to go the opposite direction. This is when the defendant had grabbed me.
I hit the ground and began feeling the attack.”
Pearson stabbed Madison 17 times, targeting her chest and spine. The attack was so violent that Madison suffered two collapsed lungs, a broken rib, and a laceration to her spinal cord that left her paralyzed from the waist down.
“I remember being on my hands and knees begging for the defendant to get off me with my screams slowly becoming more and more silent,” she said.
When Jackie Roget rushed to her daughter’s defense, Pearson turned the knife on her, slashing her across the face and inflicting multiple stab wounds. Jackie sustained a huge gash across her head and needed surgery on her hand.
The attack might have continued if not for the bravery of a complete stranger. Kennedy Armstrong, a man who had just gotten off work and was backing his truck into a parking spot, saw the attack unfold and sprang into action.
“I just backed my truck in. Got off of work and I see the guy on top of that girl right there,” Armstrong said. “I heard yelling.
I ran over and knocked him off and I guess when I knocked him off, he sliced me.”
Armstrong’s hand was nearly severed in the struggle. He suffered severe nerve damage and required multiple surgeries. His heroic intervention likely saved Madison’s life, giving her mother precious seconds to pull Pearson off her daughter.
“I had my hand essentially cut in half, skin flapping, seeing your own bones, along with your own blood spewing from a severed artery was something most can’t imagine,” Armstrong later said.
As witnesses closed in, Pearson turned the knife on himself, attempting to slit his own throat multiple times. He survived the attempt.
The aftermath was chaos. Emergency dispatchers received frantic calls describing the scene.
“Somebody just got stabbed right in front of Chubby’s,” one caller said.
Another caller described the scene: “He’s not moving. He has slit his throat multiple times. He’s breathing.
Like, you can see his vocal cords.”
Madison was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. Doctors found she had lost sensation from her nipples down to her toes and had no motor function below the T4 spinal level.
“Madison had patchy areas of where she could actually feel some things, but not feel a lot of things,” a medical professional said. “So, loss of sensation from the nipples down to her toes. And she had no motor function from below that T4 level, meaning that there was paralysis there initially on our examination.”
She underwent spinal stabilization surgery but remained paralyzed. The road to recovery would be long and grueling.
“I remember praying and telling myself that I had to survive,” Madison said. “If not for me, for everyone in my life I knew would not be okay through my death. I remember begging God to live.
I remember telling myself that I could not close my eyes as I was terrified that if I did I would never open them again.”
The weeks leading up to the attack were marked by escalating terror. Madison detailed the stalking in her victim impact statement, describing how Pearson followed her home just 24 hours after their breakup.
“Not even 24 hours after the breakup the stalking began,” she said. “As I innocently sat in a Davis Park parking lot with a few friends after a softball game, the defendant decided to show up. Not only did he show up uninvited, he showed up unannounced and unwarranted.”
Madison described driving home with Pearson tailing her car, taking a different route to avoid leading him to her house, and eventually pulling into a parking lot to escape.
“I began texting the defendant begging for him to stop following me and very clearly telling him that he was scaring me,” she said.
The stalking continued for weeks. Pearson left notes on her car, created 𝒻𝒶𝓀𝑒 social media accounts to harass her, and caused issues at school. Madison was in the process of obtaining a restraining order when the attack occurred.
Pearson’s defense team attempted to mitigate his actions by pointing to his diagnoses of autism, depression, and anxiety. They also raised the possibility of undiagnosed CTE from years of playing tackle football.
Dr. Michael J. Bear, a neuropsychologist who evaluated Pearson, testified that brain imaging revealed a cavum septum pellucidum, a condition typically associated with multiple head injuries.
Bear estimated Pearson had sustained just over 10,000 hits to the head during his football career.
“All I can say it’s more likely to happen because he has brain injury and more impulsive and more easily to do things without regard to consequence and do things arising out of emotion,” Bear testified.
But the prosecution countered that Pearson’s actions were planned and deliberate. He had been watching Madison’s family at the restaurant, had waited for them to leave, and had armed himself with a knife.
“You planned this. You knew what you were doing and thanks to God, you failed,” one victim impact statement read. “You failed at your planned murder attempts.
You failed at your own suicide and you will remain a failure until you see God and he sends you to the devil.”
Pearson’s father, Daniel, testified about his son’s struggles, including a suicide attempt in May 2023 that led to Spencer being hospitalized at an inpatient care facility. Daniel described finding his son hanging in a closet, blue in the face, and working with his wife to cut him down.
“He was blue in the face,” Daniel Pearson said. “And then there was tears coming out of his eyes and me and Tanya were just hugging on him, crying.”
Spencer Pearson was discharged from the facility but quickly reverted to a deep depression. On the day of the attack, his father said Spencer seemed sad but not agitated.
“I was glad he was going to the beach to get out and maybe get some fresh air,” Daniel Pearson said.
Instead, Spencer went to Mr. Chubby’s Wings.
In his own statement before sentencing, Spencer Pearson expressed remorse.
“Your honor, I’m here before you today to take responsibility for my actions of June 3rd, 2023,” he said. “Most importantly, I’m here to express my sincerest apology to Madison, Ms. Roger, Mr.
Armstrong. I’m sure June 3rd was the worst day of their lives. It was also the worst day of mine and always will be.”
He asked for forgiveness and mercy, saying he wanted the chance to get help and return to his family.
But the judge was unmoved.
“The events that unfolded on that afternoon were horrific,” the judge said. “This defendant launched a vicious attack on a 17-year-old girl who had done nothing but show him love. There are just certain crimes that are committed that merit the maximum possible sentence.
And this court finds that this is one of them.”
Spencer Pearson will serve the remainder of his life in prison with no possibility of parole.
For Madison, the sentencing marks the end of one chapter but the beginning of another. She has worked tirelessly to recover, defying the odds by regaining some mobility. She walked into the courtroom for the sentencing, a moment she had promised herself she would achieve.
“I had known I was paralyzed yet never in my head did I think I would not overcome it,” she said. “Immediately I told myself that I would walk again. I would walk in my senior night for softball.
That I would walk at graduation the following May.”
Madison’s mother, Jackie, addressed her daughter’s attacker directly during the sentencing.
“I have to watch my daughter struggle every night and day because of you,” she said. “Struggle to breathe because her lungs were collapsed because of you. Struggle to maintain her oxygen through two huge pneumothorax in her chest because of you.
Struggle to sit up because of you. Struggle to brush her own teeth because of you. Then to struggle to gain mobility back after being stabbed in her spinal cord causing paralysis because of you.
Struggle every day to regain the independence she lost because of you. You have no idea how much pain you’ve caused my family, and you never will. You’re a horrible person.”
Kennedy Armstrong, the hero who intervened, also addressed the court and the public, expressing gratitude that Madison and Jackie survived.
“Thank you, Kennedy, for saving my daughter’s life,” Jackie Roget said. “I cannot ever express how much you mean to me and my family. You are the epitome of what a man should be, and I’m grateful for your parents for raising such a super super human.”
Madison’s final words before sentencing were a testament to her resilience.
“To close things out, you thought you were going to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 people that day, but instead you blew on an ember that sparked a fire inside of Madison and that fire will continue,” she said.
The case has drawn national attention, serving as a stark reminder of the dangers of stalking and the importance of taking threats seriously. Madison’s family hopes her story will inspire other victims of stalking to seek help before it’s too late.
“June 3rd, 2023 was without a doubt the absolute worst, most traumatic day of my life,” Madison said. “And I remember every single second of it.”
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