Ajla Zekan, 23, of St. Louis has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for stabbing a taxi driver and stealing his cab in Imperial in February 2020.
Zekan pleaded guilty Sept. 20 to first-degree assault, armed criminal action and tampering with a motor vehicle, and on Dec. 2, Jefferson County Div. 5 Circuit Judge Victor Melenbrink sentenced Zekan to 10 years for assault, 10 years for armed criminal action and seven years for tampering. However, those terms will be served concurrently, or at the same time.
The terms also will be served concurrently with two other seven-year sentences she received Sept. 20 after pleading guilty to possession of a controlled substance stemming from a January 2020 arrest in Arnold and to tampering connected to a December 2019 incident in Jefferson County, court records show.
Jefferson County assistant prosecuting attorney Maren Biermann handled the cases.
On Feb. 4, 2020, a 48-year-old St. Louis man who works for United Cab Co. picked up Zekan at Mercy Hospital South in south St. Louis County and took her to a location on Windemere Drive and Feris Court in Imperial before Zekan stabbed him 11 times with a knife. The man suffered serious injuries to his face, hand, chest, shoulder and lower torso and was taken to an area hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, the probable-cause statement in the case said.
After the assault, the driver got out of the van he was using as a cab and went to a nearby home to call for help. When the driver got out of the cab, Zekan got into the driver’s seat and stole the van, the report said.
The cab was located on Telegraph Road near Forder Road in south St. Louis County, Sheriff’s Office spokesman Grant Bissell said.
The day after the stabbing, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office released photos of Zekan from surveillance footage from Dierbergs, 1240 Tesson Ferry Road, in south St. Louis County, which is near Mercy. She was arrested on Feb. 8, 2020, when she was seen walking in the 10000 block of Kennerly Road in south St. Louis County, said Tracy Panus, a St. Louis County Police media relations officer.
In January 2020, an Arnold Police officer pulled over a car, and Zekan was a passenger. The officer smelled marijuana inside the vehicle, and a police dog indicated drugs were in the car. The officer found 20 capsules containing fentanyl in Zekan’s purse, the report said.
The month before, in December 2019, Zekan went to a home in the 3500 block of Stonemill Drive northwest of Arnold to check on a friend’s children because the woman was in jail. While Zekan was there, she stole her friend’s 2007 Nissan Sentra, and purse, and Zekan took $283 out of her friend’s bank account, the case’s probable-cause statement said.