Xavier Leathers, age 12, was asleep on the couch at his mother’s Temple Hills, Maryland, apartment around 12:30 a.m. Saturday. That’s when he says he heard a man come into the unit and start choking her.
“Something in my body told me I had to take action then or something bad would happen. She’ll probably not make it,” he said.
Xavier got the sharpest knife in the kitchen and stabbed the attacker in the back. Police later arrested the man.