Burlington Man Trips Suspect After Topeka Police Tie Him to 17-Victim Spree

Ron Hubbard said he was with a friend on Oct. 28 when he looked up the street to his left and spotted a stranger moving past them. Topeka police say that stranger, Adam Schwegman, was running from an attack minutes earlier at Ward Meade Park, where a 70-year-old woman was hurt. "I was thinking about a scenario I seen on TV where a delivery guy did the same when the police was chasing a guy who stole a car," Hubbard said.

Investigators say the violence along S.W. Fillmore began an hour before Hubbard saw Schwegman. Police say Schwegman stabbed two people at a house on that road, and his booking paperwork includes an allegation of rape at the same address. He then entered two other homes on the street; four children were in one, including a four-month-old, and none of them were hurt, officials said.

A third stabbing followed on a street near the park, according to the Topeka Police Department. Officers say Schwegman then attacked a 70-year-old woman at Ward Meade Park and left the area on foot. Police were pursuing him from that location when Hubbard and another person confronted him.

Hubbard said he tripped the man he identified as Schwegman. "I decided to step in, throw my leg out, trip him and he landed over here in the grass, and the knife fell in the grass," Hubbard said. He said he moved the knife to the sidewalk while a second person held Schwegman. Schwegman got away from them, and officers took him into custody soon afterward.

Schwegman was booked on 16 counts, including aggravated battery and rape. He made an initial court appearance on Oct. 29, where a judge set total bond at $3 million. Hubbard said he intervened to stop further harm, adding, "Well, if you see something bad, try to help stop it. I wish we could have got to it before this happened."

The Topeka Police Department lists 17 people affected across the incidents it investigated on Oct. 28. No names or ages were released for the people who were stabbed, and officials did not say whether the rape allegation involved any of them.