photo by: Lawrence Police Department

Sean Martin Reese

Updated at 1:35 p.m. Monday, May 22

A Baldwin City man was arrested Monday on suspicion of attempted first-degree murder in connection with a woman who was stabbed multiple times over the weekend.

The man, Sean Martin Reese, 38, was arrested after he turned himself in to police on Monday morning after police asked the community for help in finding him around 7 a.m.

Police were looking for Reese after he was named as a person of interest in connection with a stabbing that occurred Sunday night. Police were called to the 1300 block of Rhode Island Street around 11:30 p.m., according to a news release from the Lawrence Police Department.

“We found a woman outside with several stab wounds who needed to be transported to a trauma center,” the release said, adding that “we learned the suspect may have placed explosives in the home.”

Police obtained a search warrant and called in the Leavenworth Bomb Squad to assist. They also notified administrators at nearby Liberty Memorial Central Middle School during the night as a precaution, but the home was cleared before anyone arrived at the school.

The devices found were described by search teams as homemade devices, consistent with larger scale commercial fireworks, and they were removed, police said.

Reese is being held without bond as of Monday afternoon. Reese has multiple felony convictions in Douglas County according to Kansas Department of Correction records, including flee and elude in 2018 and aggravated assault and obstruction in 2004. He was also convicted of felony flee and elude in 2021 in Shawnee County.