CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A man accused of a violent attack in a south Charlotte park is no stranger to police, and those who stopped him from fleeing the scene believe he knew what was in store for him.

Kelvin Jones, 41, is charged with kidnapping, robbery and sexual battery. Police say he approached a woman sitting on a bench at Park Road Park on Wednesday, pulled out a knife and forced her behind a building where he robbed her of her cell phone, sunglasses and keys and demanded that she touch him sexually. When she refused, police say he dug the knife into her more forcefully.

Hollie Martin still remembers the woman’s screams for help when she broke free.

“She was yelling, ‘Help me, help me,’” he said.

Martin and other bystanders in the park stopped the suspect in his tracks.

“We went after him, and he said, ‘You got me, you got me,’” said Hollie Martin.

Witnesses said the victim was able to give police DNA evidence to back up her claim.

Jones already has a violent history. Police records show officers have been called to Jones’ home 12 times over the past two years, several times for domestic violence. But despite their familiarity with his life in Charlotte, there are a lot of questions about him they can’t answer. Investigators are still digging into his past, which includes two murder charges, assault charges and drug charges.

Eyewitness News has discovered Jones was charged with murder in Florida in 1985, but was acquitted of the charge. Then in 1988, he was charged with murder in another case. There’s no record of the result of that charge, but records show that same year he pled guilty to aggravated assault.

He was also charged with sexual assault in Florida and served 16 years in prison on a series of drug charges. Jones was released from jail in 2005 and seems to have been in Charlotte since then.

Jones made his first appearance in court on Thursday. He said nothing as he appeared by video for just about a dozen seconds. The judge set a bond hearing for later this month.

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