'I Wanted To Live,' Woman Tells Authorities After Stabbing, Biting Off Penis Of Her Alleged Rapist

A South Carolina woman escaped a knife-wielding rapist by biting off his penis and sinking the man's own knife into his buttocks, according to a police report.

Registered sex offender Dennis Slaton, 61, allegedly picked the woman up in August and took her to his home at knifepoint to force her to have sex with him. 

Slaton was behind the wheel of his white Ford F-150 pickup truck when he encountered the woman at a Spinx gas station on South Pleasantburg Drive in Greenville on the evening of Aug. 8, according to the Greenville County Sheriff's Office incident report reviewed by Oxygen.com. 

Slaton allegedly agreed to drive the 49-year-old woman to a friend's place nearby for $5, according to authorities. The woman told deputies she was planning to get potato salad with her friend.

Slaton —  described by the woman as a "big white male" with grayish hair, wearing a baseball cap — drew a "large silver metal knife" when she was in the pickup cab, and held it to her throat, according to the report.

He then began yelling that he "hated whores," and that "whores keep taking his money," according to the report. Slaton also insisted that the woman owed him $300, she told authorities.

Photo: Greenville County Sheriff’s Office

The man took the woman to his home, and brought her to what was apparently his bedroom, the woman told authorities. Still clutching the blade, Slaton allegedly pocketed the woman’s cell phone and commanded her “to take my f---ing clothes off." She obeyed, and then was warned that if she went near Slaton's pants he would kill her, according to the report.

The 230-pound Slaton eventually forced the woman onto the bed and "straddled her," while continuing to rant about his hatred of "whores." He also told her he planned to kill her when he was "done with her," according to the report.

Just as Slaton began to force her to perform oral sex, the woman acted, according to the report.

Managing to maneuver her arms underneath him, she allegedly bit his penis off, according to medical records, then got a hold of the man's knife and attacked: "I stabbed him in the left butt cheek and left it there," the woman told authorities.

A bloody struggle allegedly ensued, with Slaton chasing the woman down the hall with the knife still lodged in his rear. She managed to fend off her wounded attacker by kicking at him until he released her and she made it out the back door, according to authorities.

The woman ran door-to-door "completely naked" and begging for help from the man's neighbors, until she ended up at a nearby Waffle House, according to the report.

When sheriff's deputies arrived, a customer had loaned her a polo shirt, and she had covered her legs with plastic trash bags, authorities wrote in the report. She was weeping and sweating, but told officers what had happened. She also told them that Slaton was likely "bleeding out."

She was unapologetic about the injuries she allegedly caused to her attacker.

"I wanted to live," she told authorities. "I did not know that I had done that to him, but he told me that he was going to kill me."

Using the woman's description of where she was assaulted, as well as Slaton's vehicle, authorities soon descended on his home and spotted women's clothes in the driveway, as well as blood on a side door, according to the report. 

Deputies used a megaphone to call Slaton out, but when there was no response, they prepared to enter. Slaton then emerged, "covered in blood" and they detected "a strong odor of some alcoholic beverage coming from his breath," according to the report. One sheriff's deputy wrote that Slaton was known by local law enforcement to have weapons in his home, so he was ordered to lie down on the ground, while deputies kept their weapons trained on him. He complied, according to the report. 

Slaton told authorities that "he had not done anything, and that he needed to go to the hospital," according to the report.

When questioned about the incident, Slaton allegedly played the victim, telling investigators it was him who was lucky to be alive. 

“It was pretty bad, pretty tragic, what happened to me,” he later told The Greenville News, reflecting on the table-turning incident. “If things had not transpired as they had, I would have been found here at my house dead.”

He was taken to a nearby hospital and underwent surgery, according to the report.

Slaton has a list of prior sex crimes, including hits for sodomy and attempted rape dating back to 1989, according to a rap sheet attached to the sheriff's office report. 

He was hit with first-degree criminal sexual conduct and kidnapping charges for the alleged August attack, and released on $75,000 bond, with the condition that he remain on house arrest, according to The Greenville News. 

This month, Slaton was arrested again for violating the terms of his release — and then released on bond again, according to The Greenville News.